


Saving Anakin Skywalker

by astarsdarkheart



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (also some medical misinformation because I am not a doctor), (only the terrible ones though, AU - Canon Divergence, Anakin needs protecting from everything, Character Death, Gen, Major Character Undeath, Medical Torture, Mental Health Issues, Padme Amidala solves everything, because i'm a predictable sap), fix-it AU, some fluff involving the children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 07:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7566178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarsdarkheart/pseuds/astarsdarkheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Padme managed to escape with her life after the horror of Mustafar, but Anakin didn't. Watching Vader become the fear of the Empire is painful for Padme, who's doing her best to help the Rebel Alliance without revealing that she isn't dead to anyone who shouldn't know. Her search for a way to redeem Anakin takes her back to Tatooine, where Obi-Wan is hiding in self-imposed exile and Shmi Skywalker, believed dead at the hands of Tusken Raiders long ago, still survives. With Shmi eager to see her son again and Obi-Wan surprisingly easy to cajole onto a ship, Padme enlists the help of a young smuggler and sets off on a mission to save Anakin Skywalker. And possibly bring down the Empire while she's at it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home Planet

**Author's Note:**

> The reason this fic exists is because I found out about a Terrible Thing that happens to Anakin / Vader in a series of comics that I unfortunately do not have the means to keep up with, and then ended up sharing my misery with someone on Tumblr who then proceeded to make the statement "where is my fic where padme and shmi come back to gang up exactly like we’re doing now? WHERE FANDOM".  
> Well... here it is, I suppose.  
> It takes a while to get to the actual saving Anakin business, because I had too much fun with the 'Padme and Shmi come back to gang up' part.  
> I also have no idea what I should be tagging, so there you go. Very sparse tag field compared to what little I've seen of AO3 before. Fanfic is not generally kind to people of my persuasions. I also can't research, so have fun with my extremely approximate guesswork as to what everything looks like.

Looking up at the bleak brown gates of the seedy palace made Padme wish she'd written a will before she left the Lars moisture farm. A note for the children, at least. She tugged a flask from her belt and let a few sips fall into her mouth before flexing into tense readiness. Her gloved hand fell on the door, creating sonorous reverberations that seemed excessive for her small hands.

 _This had better not be a fool's errand._ Her acquaintance with Shmi Skywalker had been short, but her mother-in-law deserved better than this.

The telescopic peephole ejected itself from the door with a squeak, making Padme start. “Identify yourself!” a droid ground out from behind the door.

“Jeela Daivik. I wish to speak to Jabba.” She'd seen the Hutt before, falling asleep on a viewing terrace above the Boonta Eve Classic track. Now, more than twenty years later, she found herself wishing she'd paid more attention to the sleazy gangster. Not that she hadn't had much more reason to be concerned about what was happening in the race itself, but now she had to negotiate with Jabba for the freedom of a slave once freed already.

“He will see you now.” The telescope retracted itself into the door. Padme took a deep breath, shivering despite the thick heat that blanketed the desert with Tatoo 1 and 2 both in the sky.

The door ground against the pale rock as it opened, making her wince. Even through the thick scarf wrapped around her head, the noise was piercing. No one stood behind the door to greet her, so she stepped forward. A few more steps took her into the shadow inside the palace. She did her best to ignore the door grinding shut behind her as she strode through the long hallway.

Two guards stepped out from the deepest shadows to block her path with ratty old pikes. She came to an abrupt stop. “Please allow me to pass.” Even after all these years, she could still summon the commanding voice of a Queen and Senator. The tusked guard on the left gave their partner a shifty look, then stepped back. The other guard was a little slower, but after taking a look at Padme's face, they too moved back.

Maybe it would be better not to question what the stench of the room was. Even through the throng Jabba's figure – if so ill-defined a shape could be called a figure – made itself known, as did his loud calls in Huttese, for more drinks, Padme thought, though her grasp of the language was sketchy. Well, she didn't have time to improve it now. Trying not to squint despite the reeking smoke rising from... somewhere, Padme forced her way through the crowd and into the lowered floor space right in front of Jabba's throne.

A note played on a trumpet as if a song was about to start, but Jabba let out a grunt that halted all sound in the room. Tendons tightened. Padme forced herself not to reach for her blaster. Aggressive negotiations might have been more exciting, but they were also much more dangerous.

Jabba turned rheumy eyes on her. His body convulsed with an attempt at laughter. Padme waited for the dark green protocol droid next to the Hutt to translate the low gurgling rumbles that followed.

It took the droid a moment to catch up. “The Mighty Jabba asks what such a small and lowly individual seeks his audience.”

Padme took a deep breath, pulled her hand away from her blaster again and straightened her back. “I am here to talk to you about a slave you own.” The next words caught in her throat. If what she'd heard had been just a rumour, this was where the entire scheme collapsed. “A woman by the name of Shmi Skywalker.”

A small creature with huge ears yipped into the silence, drawing Padme's gaze to its cushion, caught in the curl of Jabba's tail. Jabba himself regarded her in silence for a few moments, before shifting his viscous weight backwards and letting out a roaring laugh that made him wobble like jelly. A few of the garishly garbed people in the room offered their own tentative amusement. Padme stayed frozen, gaze falling to the grille in the floor. What kind of trap had Jabba set there?

Jabba's rumbling laugh turned to grumbling words as Padme tried to breathe slow enough to settle her nerves. The protocol droid once again reeled forward as it realised its service was required. “The Mighty Jabba has no desire to negotiate the sale of such an excellent slave. Although he will be happy to offer you a sample of her cooking, should you accept his offer of hospitality."

Had he really assumed she was here to _buy_ a slave off him? Padme forced her shoulders back. “I am not here to negotiate a price for the slave. I wish to see her set free.”

This time Jabba burst out laughing with no contemplative silence to precede the thick rumbling. The protocol droid began to squeak as it rushed to translate Jabba's next uttering. “The Mighty Jabba wonders what, precisely, you think you will achieve by making such demands of him.”

As tempting as the thought was, making a comment about how much pleasure Jabba seemed to derive from merely wielding the image of importance wouldn't help. “Shmi Skywalker has already been a free woman. You do your honour no favours to keep her enslaved.”

Had Shmi's slave chip been reactivated after the Tusken Raiders had taken her? Padme shoved the thought aside with a sharp exhalation. She was here to rescue Shmi, not to get caught up in her own concerns. That was not behaviour worthy of a former Queen and Senator. The grille on the floor caught her attention again as she looked away from Jabba and his slimy gaze. Suspicious thing to have in the middle of the floor. While his gaze wandered over to the lagging protocol droid, Padme edged back a few steps, onto solid stone.

“The Mighty Jabba has no need of honour,” the protocol droid chirped, squeaking more and more as it spoke. “Although he will be happy to test yours, should you be determined to remove this slave woman from his service.”

Padme frowned, but her questions were answered as the floor shuddered underneath her. This time her fingers wrapped tight around her blaster as she jumped back, watching the grille recede into the floor under her feet, revealing a musty pit. The stench she'd picked up earlier seemed to be even stronger here. Someone moved up behind her and poked her in the back with something metallic, making her stumble forward. She probably didn't want to be in that pit.

Gloved and clumsy fingers slipped on the blaster's dials, but she'd had this trusty little thing for a long time. As the poking from behind got more insistent, she aimed the blaster at the ceiling and fired. The grappling hook whistled and snapped as it locked into place. She let the wire pull her towards the ceiling, feet out so she wouldn't bounce too hard. Something deep down in the pit let out a hungry, rasping roar; she shut her eyes and winced as Jabba's throne scraped forward across the floor. Was this set up for some kind of blood sport? Maybe she'd rather not know. It hadn't gone to plan for Jabba, in any case; he looked up at her with narrowed – though still huge – eyes, waving his stubby arms around as if that would bring her down.

The wire would hold her weight a while before letting her fall, but it would still be preferable to get away from the ceiling on her own time. Jabba's throne was right beneath her now. She turned her head. A guard in full armour stood where she'd been a moment ago. Must have been trying to shove her into the pit.

Another look around, and then she settled on a plan. As Jabba looked down to rumble orders at the guards scattered throughout the room, she twisted her body around and released her grip on the trigger. She managed to land right behind Jabba and jabbed the barrel of the blaster into the folds of his neck.

He made a squawking sound that hushed the room. Padme took a deep breath. Queen and Senator. “I'm not here to harm you. But if Shmi Skywalker is not released...”

The guards she could see around Jabba's bulk had frozen. Jabba gurgled something at the protocol droid. “The Mighty Jabba agrees to release the slave from service, on the condition that you cease to threaten his life.”

A hasty capitulation, considering the earlier statement that Shmi made an excellent slave – Padme did her best not to shudder at the thought – but individual slaves probably weren't important enough to a Hutt crime lord that he'd risk his life for one. Padme nodded and moved the blaster away. “Thank you, Jabba.”

She couldn't see his face, but the gurgle he emitted sounded resigned.

 

Two guards behind thick-visored helmets brought a woman with greying hair to the front door as Padme stood waiting. “You've got your slave, now get out of here,” one of them muttered as the door ground open, letting the hammer of double sunlight hit Padme's back. She acknowledged the guard with a dignified nod and turned to the woman as the pair retreated.

“Do we know each other?” The woman frowned. “You seem familiar.”

Padme swallowed the lump in her throat. “Shmi Skywalker, yes?”

Shmi nodded, folding her arms. Padme took a deep breath, breaking into a smile. “Padme Amidala. It's been a long time since we met -”

Shmi's eyes widened. “Padme Amidala? Queen and Senator of Naboo?”

Padme nodded, realising with momentary guilt that she'd been disguised as a handmaiden when she'd taken shelter in Shmi's house. “I visited your house in disguise, in the company of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice.”

Shmi breathed out a laugh and let her arms fall. “My lady...”

“There's no need for that.” The twin suns were hot enough to make Padme's thoughts slow. “It's been a while since I held office.”

Shmi nodded, a smile settling on her face despite the sombre tone of her next words. “What brings you back to Tatooine?”

The crumbling inside Padme's chest came back hard. She forced a smile and said, “That might be better discussed somewhere we can sit down out of the sun. It's... a long story. We can return to the Lars household. You can meet your grandchildren.”

Shmi blinked. “Grandchildren?”

Padme nodded, her smile genuine for a moment against the weight in her chest. “Grandchildren. They'll be happy to see you.”

 

Padme had to fight to keep her own tears down as she watched Shmi sip at her drink with her head down. It hadn't been easy to explain what had happened to Anakin, how the very word Mustafar was still cloaked in grief and shock. Had the poor man not then become the Emperor's greatest weapon, perhaps she'd have had a chance to move on.

“He was always so kind.” Shmi spoke softly, not with Anakin's hesitancy, but Padme could see the son's mannerisms in Shmi. “How did he... change so much?”

Padme shrugged and took a sip of her own drink to conceal the shiver. “The Emperor and Anakin became good friends while Anakin was an apprentice. I think... there were parts of the Jedi Code that Anakin struggled with, and Palpatine was...” Then Padme shut her eyes and had to stop talking for a moment. Padme and Obi-Wan had spent enough time on the journey back to Coruscant from Polis Massa considering their mistakes and Anakin's, both desperate for an answer that Obi-Wan had soon given up on finding. “I think Palpatine exploited that discomfort. I can't be sure what else he did... but Anakin was manipulated into the position he's in now.”

“What use would the Emperor have for him?”

Padme was about to retort that a Jedi as powerful as Anakin made an excellent servant, then caught herself. She had to be honest, but Shmi didn't deserve sharp words. “Palpatine wanted a... a tool. As powerful as Anakin was, he was an excellent target... and already dissatisfied with the Jedi Order.” And Padme herself had contributed to that, she was sure. For all that she'd protested when he first confessed his love, she'd hardly hesitated at the thought of marriage, against the rules of the Order.

“And no one noticed in time?” Shmi lifted her head, her gaze hollowed out by the tears gathering in her eyes. That was pain that Padme recognised. “Master Qui-Gon... he seemed a sensible man, and his apprentice...”

Padme winced. “Master Qui-Gon... was killed not long after we visited you, during the Battle of Naboo. His apprentice, Obi-Wan... he trained Anakin in the Jedi ways.” She sighed and looked down at the green drink in her cup. “He seemed to... suspect something, and he certainly had some inkling of my and Anakin's relationship before I confirmed it for him... but seeing Anakin fall seemed to take the heart out of him.”

Shmi nodded slowly. Padme raised her cup to her face as if that would cover her shame. The sorrow that had hung around Obi-Wan on the way back to Coruscant had been much worse than that, but what good would it do to burden Shmi with everyone else's grief on top of her own?

Shmi shook her head. “There must be some good left in him. If the Emperor manipulated him... surely he can see what the Empire's doing to the Republic.”

The phrasing seemed odd to Padme, but she decided not to comment. “I believe there is. He made bad choices... terrible choices... but he did much of it to protect me and the children.” Then she caught herself and added, “Well, he didn't know I was pregnant with twins at the time, so he thought he was protecting just one child.”

Shmi managed a smile, forcing a nervous chuckle. That was encouraging. Padme returned the smile. “I don't think he went to the Dark Side because he wanted power for himself. There should be... something redeemable there.” At that point her words failed her. Obi-Wan had cast doubt on her certainty often enough that she'd begun to believe him, but watching the twins grow up and grow into their father's shoes...

Luke had the faith in kindness. Whiny and indecisive though he could be – but what else could be expected at the age of ten – he wanted to see the best in people. Once he outgrew his naive tendency to trust everyone without critical thought, that tendency would serve him well. And Leia... dear Leia. Padme recognised her own interest in politics and law reflected in Leia's argumentative tendencies, but the passion that drove her arguments, that was Anakin.

Those children were Anakin's children as much as they were Padme's, and she could see Anakin's goodness in the pair. There had to be something good left in Anakin.

Boots on the ground outside startled Padme out of her thoughtful reverie. “Padme? Are you around?”

“In here, Owen,” Padme called, trying to make her smile reassuring for the startled Shmi. Owen stamped into the room rubbing at his beard.

“Does Leia ever stop asking questions? Don't think I've ever been that thoroughly grilled on politics since the troopers came through rounding up traitors after Empire Day.”

“What did she start on today?” _Don't laugh at him._ That was unexpectedly difficult.

“The usual. Farming and hyperspace.” He shuffled around the kitchen opening drawers and cupboards at random, oblivious to his stepmother's presence in the room. “I don't think she's got her head around the hyperspace routes yet.”

“It'd be stranger if she had. They're complex and wide-ranging.” Padme glanced at Shmi, whose face had settled into good-natured perplexity as she leaned back in her chair. Would she have to call Owen's attention to the third person in the room? She'd told Beru what she was going to Jabba's palace to do, and Beru wouldn't have kept that a secret from Owen.

“I suppose.” He turned around, then started forward, bumping his hip on the table. “Shmi?”

Padme bowed her head, attempting to conceal her giggles. Shmi nodded, her smile easing into the crow's feet around her eyes. “It's good to see you, Owen.”

Owen stepped back and ran a hand over his head. “I honestly thought Beru was pranking me.”

“Would she?” Padme asked as innocently as she could manage.

Owen shook his head with rounded eyes as he pulled out a chair and fell into it. “Well, if she wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past the children to put her up to it.”

“Where are they?” Shmi asked, leaning forward with a sudden gleam in her eye.

Owen blinked, then grinned as he realised. “Only next door. Give me a moment, I'll call them in here.” He put a hand on the table to push himself upright and shuffled outside into the fading orange sunlight. Shmi seemed to be breathing a little harder as she sat back again.

“I'm sure they'll be glad to see you.” Padme didn't know what else to say.

Padding boots only gave Padme a couple of seconds' warning before Luke hurried into the room, his sister close behind. As Luke paused inside the door to brush his hair out of his eyes, Leia took one look at Shmi and rushed to hug her. “Grandmother!”

She must have recognised Shmi from one of the holo images that Owen kept. Shmi wrapped an arm around Leia, and reached her other arm out to Luke, who needed no more invitation to clamber into his grandmother's lap and lean close to her. All three were smiling, and the satisfaction on their faces as the twins hugged their grandmother made the crumbling ache in Padme's chest ease a little.

Leia was the first to look at Padme. “Did you find Grandmother today while you were gone?”

Padme nodded.

“Where?”

Padme looked down and sighed. “It's probably best if I don't tell you that. It's not a nice place.” Thank all that was holy that Jabba hadn't tried to restore Shmi's slave chip. Shmi hadn't seemed too concerned about it when Padme asked, but she'd lived with it in her body for the first half of her life. To Padme the thought was still shocking.

With a sideways glance at Padme, Shmi dipped her head in subtle approval. Luke sat up and twisted around in Shmi's lap to look at Padme. “Have you found what you're looking for here on Tatooine yet? I'm getting fed up of the sand.”

Padme chuckled at his petulancy. Sometime in the midst of the Clone Wars, she'd asked Anakin how long it took to develop a strong dislike of sand while living on a desert planet like Tatooine. He'd estimated a couple of months to get annoyed with it, and a permanent dislike after a year or two. So far that seemed to hold up. “I think so. I still need to talk to old Ben, though.”

Luke nodded. Shmi frowned. “You're looking for something in particular here?”

Setting her cup aside on the table, Padme nodded. “I'll explain later.” As she got out of her chair, she added, “You two need to get to bed.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “It's still light out.”

“Tomorrow's going to be a long day,” Padme returned. “Come on.”

Leia shook her head. Shmi chuckled and pulled Leia a little closer. “You need your sleep. I'll tell you a bedtime story, if you want.”

That seemed to satisfy both children. “Thank you,” Padme murmured to Shmi as she took Luke and Leia's hands and led them out into the open centre of the homestead.

Shmi just smiled. “It's a pleasure.”

 

“So you're going to try to bring Anakin home?”

Padme had expected Shmi to be shocked at the thought – even if Darth Vader was more of a horrific myth than a real person out here in the Outer Rim, his reputation was as terrifying as the black suit he wore – but she seemed inquisitive more than anything. “Yes. That's what I'm planning to do.”

“If what you've said about the Empire is true... you could be putting yourself at great risk.” Shmi folded her arms and gave Padme a serious look, framed by the hanging leaves of the mysterious plant in the centre of the homestead. Padme still hadn't found out what it was.

“It is a risk.” Trying to explain this made Padme shiver. “But I was thrown into battle at the age of fourteen. I'm used to risks. I'd rather take that risk than see Anakin live out the rest of his life a slave of the Emperor in that suit.”

Shmi flinched. “Of course.” Her head drooped as Padme waited for her own heartbeat to settle. The setting of the suns made the light in the sky shift shades constantly.

“Shmi!” Beru called from across the courtyard. “The guest room's ready. It's not perfect, I had to fix it in a bit of a hurry, but it should be comfortable.”

“Thank you, Beru,” Shmi called back, before turning a soft and pained gaze back on Padme, who flinched. _Pain cannot be remembered._

“He fell apart when he thought you'd been killed.” The words were hard to say, and Padme wasn't sure they were the right ones in any case, but she had to fill the silence of unasked questions and unanswered hurt. “He couldn't protect you, and he... he hated that.” Hatred, the last step before the Dark Side, according to Obi-Wan. Could she mention the Tusken Raiders who'd died, how Anakin had fallen apart in front of Padme, how she hadn't even known how to pick up the pieces of the crumbling Jedi? He'd tried so hard to save his mother, and yet... What would he make of the fact that Shmi was alive? Padme forced the thought from her mind. Behind that mask that people knew as Darth Vader, it'd be impossible to see what Anakin Skywalker felt.

“He thought that people should always help each other, and he couldn't.” Shmi's warbled, low tones made Padme shiver. She looked down at her boots, unable to face Shmi's gaze for a moment.

“You'll be leaving Tatooine as soon as you can find a ship to get you where you need to go?”

Padme started, then nodded, eyes still a little wide as she did.

Shmi forced a smile. “I'll go with you. I want to see my son again.”

“He is...”

“We can bring him home.” Shmi took a step forward. Despite the smile, her eyelashes looked damp. “We can bring Anakin back.”

Gulping down her shock, Padme managed to smile. In the purple glow of that moment of twilight, they embraced each other. Padme couldn't help but shake a little. Between them, they could do what she and Obi-Wan had failed to do ten years ago on Mustafar.

“I suppose we should turn in.” Shmi's voice croaked a little with the weight of emotion wrapping around her throat. “Tomorrow will be a long day, you said.”

Padme nodded, trying not to think of all the reasons why. Obi-Wan was going to be difficult to convince, she knew it. “You're right. Thank you, Shmi.”

“Thank _you_ , Padme. I wouldn't have had a chance to see my son again if you hadn't come for me.”

For all that Padme still had trouble justifying that to herself as anything but selfish motives, she nodded. “I couldn't do anything else. Goodnight, Shmi.”

“And to you too.”

They shared a last smile before Shmi walked straight across the courtyard to the guest room and Padme turned back to the door that led to the three small rooms where she and the twins slept. Luke would be sound asleep already. Leia, not so certainly. Still, she'd learnt to be sensible about how long she stayed up reading as she got older. Padme could leave her to her own devices and go to sleep as soon as her mind would let her. The thought of having Anakin back in her life was a thrilling one, but Darth Vader's mask still played a harsh melody in the back of her mind.


	2. Someone Old, Someone New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obi-Wan is cajoled onto a ship, Leia is snippy with people, and a young smuggler may have made a mistake in taking these passengers aboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a fast writer and apparently had nothing better to do with my life today, there's a second chapter already! I'm sure it'll make up for the three-week drought that's likely to happen in August.  
> Wookieepedia apparently doesn't know how old Han Solo is, and consequently neither do I. I'm going to peg him as about fifteen-sixteen for the purposes of this fic. No, I will not write him and Leia getting into any kind of relationship. They may be on speaking terms at the end of the fic. Maybe. Han's mostly here so I don't have to make up a new way to get them off Tatooine. And also because the less new characters I have to name, the better. I'm terrible at names.

Obi-Wan froze behind the opening door. “Padme? What brings you out here?”

“Old Ben knows you?” Leia piped up from behind Padme's skirt. Padme patted her daughter's dark hair and nodded before looking up to meet Obi-Wan's weathered gaze.

“This is Anakin's home planet. I came to look for something that could save him.”

Luke tugged at her sleeve, one hand covering his mouth. Obi-Wan's gaze flickered down from Padme to Luke, who turned his head further away, and then to Leia, who looked up at the ageing Jedi Master with stern curiosity. As Padme slowed her breath and forced her shoulders back, Obi-Wan nodded, gaze falling to his feet, and stepped back. “Come in. I'll hear you out.”

“Thank you.”

It wasn't necessary to take the regal tone with Obi-Wan. After their travels together before the Battle of Naboo, after years of comfortable acquaintance, after Mustafar... somehow it was impossible to speak to him like a friend. He'd aged twenty years in the last ten. Luke and Leia sat down on the floor as Obi-Wan gestured for Padme to take a seat carved out of the pale stone wall. He sat down in a chair by the table, four paces away, and let out a sigh that carried the gusting darkness of Tatooine's night breeze with it. “So you came here to... find a way to save Anakin?”

He still doubted it was possible. Padme nodded. “Shmi Skywalker is alive. I rescued her from servitude in Jabba the Hutt's palace.”

Luke jerked upright, eyes widening. “Jabba the Hutt?”

Padme winced at her own oversight and nodded. Luke shuddered and shuffled closer to his sister, who gave him a dark look. Obi-Wan rolled his eyes at the pair as his hand moved to cover his salt-and-pepper beard. “And you brought the children with you?”

“I thought they should meet their aunt and uncle.” She took a moment to clear her throat before adding, “And you, Obi-Wan.”

Incoherent noises from the twins made Obi-Wan jump before he could reply. Leia was already on her feet; Luke didn't take long to catch up. “You're Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan Kenobi?” Leia demanded, eyes shining though her face was as hard as a rounded child's face could be.

Obi-Wan sighed, shifting his weight forward and putting a hand on his knee. “I am.”

Behind their backs, the twins fumbled for each other's hands. They tugged each other around a lot, and however much they both griped when the other one took the lead, they didn't seem inclined to stop. Padme let herself smile while Obi-Wan was distracted.

“You trained Father.” For all that he knew what had become of Anakin, Luke's voice was full of wonder; as Padme expected, Obi-Wan flinched. He wouldn't consider himself worthy of Luke's admiration, not now. Ten years would take the sharp edge off the sting, but Padme could see her own distress reflected in Obi-Wan. Only he'd chosen to hide rather than fight. A noble act in theory, the act of a dignified and restrained Jedi, but what would he do here on Tatooine but waste away in apathy and sorrow?

“I trained him.” Obi-Wan moved back in his chair and waved at the other side of the room. “There might be some sweets left. Enjoy yourselves.”

They were ten; no further encouragement was required. A smile appeared between the stress lines on Obi-Wan's face as he settled back. “The Force is strong with both of them.”

Padme nodded. “Shmi and I will be travelling back to Alderaan as soon as I can find a ship to take us. There's got to be some good left in Anakin. I don't believe he fell by choice. We can bring him home, Obi-Wan, and I want you to come with us.”

The old Jedi sighed and leaned forward. “I... appreciate the concern, Padme.” He had to cough the words up. “But there's nothing left to do. Palpatine manipulated him into becoming... something other than the boy I trained. He's more machine now than man.”

Breha had once called C-3PO 'more of a fussy old man than a protocol droid'. Anakin wouldn't have been able to find a code for the droid that would meet proper Republic standards, but for all his unnecessary chatter and indignation, 3PO made an excellent addition to the Organa household. Padme shook her head. “Palpatine couldn't replace his mind with cybernetics. I know that... the things he's done in the name of the Empire are terrible. What he did to the Jedi... to you...” Obi-Wan flinched at that. Padme decided not to pursue that thought. “He's made mistakes. I can't deny it. But if I can prevent him from making more... that would be enough.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “The Empire has devastated the whole galaxy, and Vader is its face. You know what they call him. Do you really think you can take on the entire Empire?”

“I'm willing to try.”

Obi-Wan let his head drop. Padme shivered and clasped her hands together in her lap, hoping that Obi-Wan wouldn't see how they were shaking with the heavy pulse of her blood.

The moments ticked past with only the children's footsteps across the room to mark them. Obi-Wan seemed to be about to speak when Luke came hurrying back across the room, ignoring the hair flopping in his face as he held an old but still pristine metallic cylinder to a bemused Obi-Wan. “What's this, Ben?”

Half the room vanished from Padme's sight. Her breath caught in her throat. She'd seen that before, oh so many times. Obi-Wan must have taken hold of it after... after their fight on Mustafar.

Obi-Wan's eyes fell half shut. “That, young lad, is your father's lightsaber.”

Luke reached a hand up to brush his hair out of his face, revealing widening eyes. “His lightsaber? Why do you have it?”

Obi-Wan sighed and bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together like a man in need of prayer. “I picked it up from the ash after Mustafar.” He wouldn't refer to their duel out loud. He'd described it to Padme while she was recovering on Polis Massa and never mentioned it again.

Luke nodded and stepped back, holding it with the ends pointed out to the sides as he searched for a button. Leia stood across the table, glaring at Luke but safe out of the way of the blue lightsaber blade that began to hum as Luke found the button. He fumbled the weapon in his surprise but managed to hold onto it. Padme couldn't make out the words he was mouthing.

“Put that thing away, please. Without practice it's easy to hurt yourself, or someone else.” Obi-Wan's heart wasn't in the command, but Luke nodded and retracted the blade, holding the hilt to his side like a blaster.

“You used to use one like that, didn't you?”

As innocent as the query was, Obi-Wan still shuddered. “I did.”

“You're a Jedi.” Leia traipsed around the table to stand by her brother. “You helped rescue Father from when he was a slave. You can rescue him again, can't you?”

Something about the young girl's tone made Obi-Wan hesitate. Padme shook herself and cut in. “If you aren't willing to try again, Obi-Wan, I swear I will drag you aboard a ship myself.”

He flinched and locked gazes with her. _Queen and Senator._ He wouldn't let the twins down like that. Luke and Leia watched their mother and the old Jedi in silence, Luke waiting with glowing eyes and Leia with a stubborn set to the mouth and her arms crossed.

Obi-Wan bowed his head. “If you fail in this, Padme, you risk your life. The twins...”

“They've spent most of their lives with the Organa family. They'll be fine.” Padme forced the guilty twinge in her stomach to silence.

“You were one of Father's only friends, you know,” Leia pointed out, glaring at Obi-Wan. Her disapproval seemed to be too much for him. He sighed and got to his feet.

“You leave as soon as you can find a ship, you say?”

“Of course.”

“You'll be heading to Mos Eisley today, then?”

Padme nodded.

With a final heaving sigh, Obi-Wan stomped towards the door and reached for his cloak. “I don't own much. We'll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

Padme nodded in acknowledgement and winked at the twins behind Obi-Wan's back. They both grinned back, putting an arm around each other's shoulders. Obi-Wan had certainly taken after his Master.

 

Shmi seemed willing to regale the twins with all manner of stories about their father, life on Tatooine, and her life both as a slave and as a free woman. They demanded stories from Obi-Wan too – mostly about Anakin, although she did hear him mutter something about the Trade Federation blockade negotiations at one point – but he was rather more recalcitrant. Still the twins persevered, and succeeded too, by the sound of things.

The search for a ship was rather less successful; by the time the twins were fed up of the sun and they sought shelter and a meal, Padme could only think of one place she hadn't tried.

Obi-Wan gave a thoughtful nod as she explained their predicament over the heads of the twins. “Several smugglers there. Reliable if you pay them enough, but that can take a lot of money, and the less of a spectacle we make, the better.”

Shmi leaned over the table. “You haven't forgotten the Jedi arts, I hope? Qui-Gon seemed to get by quite well without resorting to much bargaining.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “It would be inadvisable to demonstrate such skills, considering that the Jedi are supposed to be eradicated.”

“Subtlety, Obi-Wan. Surely Anakin didn't dispose of that concept entirely,” Padme commented, heat and frustration making her voice acerbic.

“He certainly came close to doing so.” Obi-Wan didn't seem to notice and replied in level tones. “We'll have to find a pilot there, I suppose.”

“I'm not sure I'd want to take the children there.”

“I'll stay here with them.” Glancing at the pair out of the corner of her eye, Shmi added, “It may be a while before they're done eating.”

Chuckling, Padme nodded. “Thank you, Shmi.” She drained her drink and got to her feet. “Obi-Wan and I will be back as soon as possible.”

 

“Hear you need a ship,” the young smuggler said in lieu of greeting as Padme seated herself. She ignored the boot on the table and nodded.

“Alderaan, five passengers.”

The Wookiee that Obi-Wan had conversed with before beckoning Padme to the musty corner growled at the waist-coated smuggler, who waved a hand. “Easy, Chewie. I know what I'm doing.” The boot slid off the table as he leaned forward. “You'll have to sleep in shifts, but the journey shouldn't take long. My ship's the fastest in the galaxy, so you'll get there quickly. Still, I'm going to need payment.”

“The fastest in the galaxy?” Obi-Wan frowned. He'd spent most of the Clone Wars as a pilot, Padme remembered, although he wasn't half as fond of flying as Anakin had been. “What kind of ship is this?”

“Not the kind you can buy.” The smuggler smirked and leaned back with a hand behind his head. “It's a Corellian YT-1300, but I've made some alterations of my own.”

Obi-Wan nodded, though his brow had drawn together. “That may explain why I haven't heard of it.”

The smuggler started forward. “You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon?”

Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose towards his receding hairline. “Should I have?”

The Wookiee growled again. Padme rolled her eyes. “I'm glad that it's a fast ship, young man, but I'm more interested in how much you expect to be paid.”

The smuggler tugged at his waistcoat, once again smirking. Couldn't be more than twenty, and Padme would have guessed a few years younger. “You want to get there fast... call it fifteen thousand. In advance.”

Obi-Wan made a strangled sound in his throat that only Padme heard. She ignored him. “I can go to seventeen if you'll take two now and the rest on arrival. I prefer not to carry much here in the Outer Rim.”

The smuggler frowned and glanced up at the Wookiee, who roared and growled with a few shakes of the head. The smuggler nodded as the Wookiee finished ranting and looked back at Padme. “I'll take it. Can't say I'm fond of this dust barrel.”

“Excellent.” Padme forced a polite smile. “Before we discuss the arrangements, can I get your names?”

“Of course.” He leaned back, hitching his boot on his other knee rather than putting it back on the table. “Chewbacca here is first mate. I'm Han Solo.”

 

The freighter in Bay 94 didn't look like much. Luke stopped in the entrance and shook his head at it. “What a piece of junk!”

“Most ships are less elegant than those used by the royalty of Alderaan,” Obi-Wan pointed out with raised eyebrows. Leia grabbed her brother by the shoulder and glared at the old Jedi. Shmi and Padme shared an eye-roll before Padme strode forward to find the young smuggler and his first mate.

Han appeared from beneath the ship's dirty belly as she approached, smirking again. That would get annoying before long. “Afternoon. All ready to go?”

Padme nodded. “Is there much work to do?”

He shook his head. “Just cleaning up a few circuits. We can fly as we are.”

She nodded again and made a mental wish that he knew what he was talking about. “I'm glad to hear it.”

“Aren't you a little young for a smuggler?” Leia piped up from behind Padme, hiding behind her mother's skirt and glaring at Han, whose smirk slipped off his face before Padme could blink.

“Don't say that sort of thing to people the first time you meet them, Leia.” Poor Bail and Breha, having to teach this one regal manners. “Ignore her, Mr Solo.”

The smuggler clenched his jaw, then nodded. “Your worshipfulness. Chewie'll have the boarding ramp down in a moment. I suggest you head right on up.”

“Thank you.”

Obi-Wan and Shmi joined Padme and Leia as the smuggler vanished under the ship, Shmi with Luke hiding behind her until he could stand next to his sister. Obi-Wan sighed as he ran his gaze over the battered panels of the ship. “This could become an interesting voyage.”

“It's only a little more than two days, if this ship is as fast as he says it is.” Not that Padme didn't share Obi-Wan's concerns, but at least they'd be short-lived concerns.

“You'll pay him even though he's a smuggler?” Shmi asked, folding her arms. Her gaze flickered around the ship. She didn't know what to look for.

Padme shrugged. “We'll see. He may not be a known criminal, and under those circumstances it'd be difficult to fault him for anything.”

Part of the ship's belly started to crank down towards the packed dirt of the docking bay at that point, making Luke and Leia jump. They didn't often get this close to ships like this on Alderaan, although Padme had grown used to the noise. In the Rebel Alliance bases, there was a constant background of mechanical growling.

“Captain Solo recommended that we board immediately.” Padme reached a hand forward to catch Leia before she stepped out of reach. “Be careful. Those ramps are heavy, and even if it only bumps you on the head, it will hurt.”

Leia nodded and stepped back, fumbling for her brother's hand. Padme took a deep breath, hoping that her nerves would settle soon. It was a short journey. They wouldn't have time for any disasters, and she hadn't set any plans that would upset the Empire in motion yet. Palpatine only had one Dragon of the Empire to send after any threats.

Her throat clammed up. She bit together and forced herself to stay still. The sooner she could get the Dragon away from the Empire, the better.

 

“And that goes for the walking carpet too!”

Padme froze and frowned in the direction of the main hold. She'd barely woken up and Leia was already bickering with someone?

She finished dressing in a hurry and strode into the main hold. Shmi and Luke were playing a quiet game of Dejarik in the corner; although Shmi had a gentle smile on her face, Luke seemed to be struggling. Leia had seated herself in a corner and was glaring at Han, who turned around and threw his hands up as he saw Padme.

“I don't know what to say to the little girl, ma'am. I told her to stop questioning me about the smuggling and she starts shouting at me.”

“Laser brain,” Leia muttered.

Padme sighed and put a hand to her forehead. “Children often have trouble with the idea of compromise, captain Solo. I'll worry about her, you worry about the ship.”

Han clenched his jaw, nodded, and turned on his heel towards the cockpit access corridor, calling for Chewbacca. Padme sat down next to Leia. “You know, Leia, it's impressive that you have such strong convictions about smuggling, but sometimes it's more useful to wait with the shouting.”

“He's a criminal.”

“I know, but he's a criminal who's helping us get where we need to go.” So far, everything Han had promised of the ship had held up; by Padme's estimate they were looking at another four or five hours before they arrived on Alderaan. “Telling him off now isn't going to be useful.”

“Are you really going to pay him for taking us home when he's a criminal?”

 _I may have taught her too well._ “We'll see. Why don't you help your brother with his Dejarik game? He seems to be struggling a little.”

“He's not doing too bad for a first time player,” Shmi commented with a soft chuckle.

Padme returned a grin as she pushed herself upright and reached a hand down to Leia. The hold was chilly, but that made a welcome change from Tatooine's stifling heat. They joined Luke and Shmi at the table. Padme had never played the game, but Leia took one look at the board and pointed at one of the holo-figures projected above the table. “Move that one forward.”

Luke looked up from underneath his mop of hair, nodded, and did as he was ordered. Shmi sat back and frowned at the board. The game relied on the different pieces fighting each other, Padme was sure. She didn't recognise all of the creatures on the board, although one on Luke's side did look like a mynock, though too large compared to its companions.

After a minute's contemplation, Shmi moved a skittering purple figure forward. Luke moved another piece before his sister could offer an opinion. Padme looked away from the holographic fight between the spindly purple creature and Luke's piece. Unlikely to be grisly, but she spent enough time dealing with injured people in Rebel bases. Strange and terrible things could be inflicted on a body in battle. She'd been lucky to get through the Battle of Naboo and the Clone Wars with so few scrapes.

“Mr Solo's a show-off,” Luke commented as the game progressed.

Padme frowned. “You think so?”

He nodded. “He wants people to think he's smart and a good smuggler. He doesn't like it when people disagree with that.”

“He's a criminal,” Leia announced, again.

“We all know that, Leia.” Padme sighed and glanced at Shmi, who forced a smile. “As long as he's being a useful criminal, leave him be.”

Luke nudged Leia in the side. “And don't call Chewie a walking carpet. I don't think it's a good idea to upset a Wookiee.”

Shmi put a hand under her chin and let a faint smile appear. Leia rolled her eyes. “Okay.”

“He's right about Chewbacca. Wookiees can be quite physical in their expressions of anger.” One of the bigger Dejarik clubs in the galaxy prohibited Wookiees from playing due to a few incidents of unmanaged anger after a loss. Shmi nodded.

Leia folded her arms and glared at her brother. “You've still got that lightsaber. That's dangerous too.”

Padme leaned forward over the holo-figures on the table. “Wait, what?”

Luke shrugged. “If you do manage to get Father back... he might want it again.”

Shmi sighed and let her head fall forward. Padme couldn't help but agree with the unspoken sentiment. “There's a reason only a small group of people were allowed to use them, Luke. I hope you're being careful with it.”

“He insisted that I show him to use it while you were asleep,” Obi-Wan commented as his drooping frame appeared in the door. “Who upset the captain?”

“Leia was less than kind to him about his smuggling.”

He smiled at that, though there wasn't enough enthusiasm in his muscles to make the expression warm. “Already following your excellent example. It's a shame she couldn't be raised on Naboo.”

“I'm sure they'll find other excellent Queens.”

Leia said nothing. Padme had taken the twins to Naboo a couple of times, but she'd never managed to stay long; some of the places contained memories that she could only bear for so long, and she ran a greater risk of being recognised on Naboo than anywhere else in the galaxy. Luke had found a poster in a concert hall on their last visit, advertising a 'once in a lifetime performance' of _Amidala's Ballad_. Padme still had no idea what that referred to, but the poster and its words stuck with her.

Padme got to her feet and gestured for Obi-Wan to join her out in the corridor. The twins frowned as she left the hold; Obi-Wan managed to suppress his doubts a little longer, but once he thought he was out of earshot of the twins, he said, “You seem concerned.”

“Is Luke old enough to be handling a lightsaber?” Anakin had lost his right arm to a lightsaber; as clean as the cut had been, the thought made Padme shudder.

Obi-Wan folded his arms. “In the old Order, most younglings would be taken as Padawans before they turn thirteen standard, so he is old enough.”

“The younglings would have worked with training lightsabers in advance of becoming Padawans, though.” Padme filled in the guilty silence that Obi-Wan left hanging in the air.

Obi-Wan nodded. “I let him try to deflect blasts from an old training drone. He got stung a couple of times, but he got the hang of it quickly. He truly is his father's son.”

Padme winced. To be the son of Anakin Skywalker was one thing, but Obi-Wan had convinced himself that Anakin was dead, and under those circumstances, for him to say that Luke was truly his father's son didn't sound like a compliment. “Do you think it's safe to let him handle the lightsaber?”

“I doubt I could stop him.” Obi-Wan shrugged without moving his arms, eyes clearing to glitter with intuitive knowledge. “He admires the man his father once was, and wishes to emulate him. Someone must have told him several stories about Anakin Skywalker.”

“I couldn't keep their heritage from them.”

“And they know that their father is Darth Vader now? The Dragon of the Empire, a sword for the Emperor's personal use?”

Padme flinched away from Obi-Wan's cool declaration of what Anakin had become. “They know. And they want him back.”

Her heartbeat pulsed into the silence until Obi-Wan leaned back into the wall of the corridor. “You never learnt how to back down.”

“You came to Mustafar with me.” Padme's voice cracked a syllable before she was finished, and she bit together, holding the crumbling in her chest from her throat where it could be heard.

Obi-Wan sighed and turned back towards the main hold. “I did. And I failed.”

Padme watched him walk back into the hold and let her head fall. Cajoling him onto a ship had been the easy part.

“What was that about?” Han asked.

Padme jumped and spun around to face the young smuggler with his hands in his pockets. He shrugged as she drew her shoulders back and summoned all the regal grace she could muster. “Seemed like you were about to get heated with each other there.”

“That is a personal matter that you do not need to concern yourself with, Captain.” Her voice felt warbling in her mouth, but Han showed no sign of noticing anything amiss.

“Alright. We're on schedule to land in a few hours' time.” His gaze flicked down the corridor that Obi-Wan had paced off down. Then he nodded to Padme and headed back to the cockpit.

She forced herself to breathe out as he turned the corner. She'd known this would be difficult from the start, without Obi-Wan's words of warning. She could do this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next instalment, according to my notes, features an upset at the Organa household, the twins disagreeing with each other about ancient Jedi weaponry, and Padme going into Senator mode while Shmi looks on in polite perplexity and Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. Somewhere in the Force, Qui-Gon is grinning mischievously.


	3. We'll Call This Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad news from a Rebel base, small children being silly and Padme being concerned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me much longer than the last chapter, I know. The kid scene was hard to write.  
> I would just like to inform you that while writing this, I managed to create the sentence 'Luke brushed his hair out of his eyes out of his hair'.  
> This is also the last chapter you'll get for a while since I'll be without Internet for a couple of weeks, pending unexpected circumstances.

Shmi let out a startled breath as she looked up at the glistening blue tower that housed the Organa family. “Sweet mercy.”

She'd never seen anything like the opulence of the Core Worlds. Padme nodded and forced as reassuring a smile as possible. “You get used to it.”

The twins had lost interest in the tower's overpowering opulence years ago. “When will Aunt and Uncle be here?” Leia demanded, folding her arms, though she didn't dare glare at her mother.

“Soon.” It'd take some time to get down from the private quarters in the tower.

Obi-Wan sighed. “Didn't think I'd end up missing this part. Still, there's more variation on a single street here than there is across all of Tatooine.”

Padme put a hand over her mouth to suppress her giggle. Obi-Wan would have been raised on Coruscant from a young age, so of course he'd have trouble adjusting to Tatooine. He wouldn't like being reminded, either. “I'm glad you're at ease, Obi-Wan.”

Bail and Breha arrived at the door in elegant but simple blues. Breha stepped forward to hug Padme. “I'm glad to see you back safe. Tatooine is a dangerous planet.”

Padme chuckled as she stepped back. “People survive there.”

Bail had picked up Luke and Leia and bounced them up and down as they giggled. “You two had a good time with your aunt and uncle?” The twins nodded. Luke brushed his hair out of his eyes only to have it fall right back.

Breha turned to Shmi, the warm smile turning glassy. “I don't believe we've met?”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak. Padme waved a hand for him to stay quiet. “This is Shmi Skywalker. Shmi, this is Breha Organa. Bail and her have been looking after the twins.”

The women nodded at Padme and turned to each other. The glass in Breha's smile vanished as they exchanged a short embrace. Bail smiled as he put the twins down. They clung to him anyway.

“And Obi-Wan, of course. It's good to see you back.”

Obi-Wan looked at his shuffling feet. “I'm glad to see you in good health, your highness.”

Poor man. Exile on Tatooine must have taken everything that Anakin's fall hadn't already torn out of him. Breha wouldn't mention it, of course. She nodded and turned back to Padme, leaving Obi-Wan to settle his nerves.

“I realise that you're fresh off the ship, but if it's possible I'd like you to attend a meeting once you have your luggage in order in your rooms. We heard from Rattatak a few days ago, and the information requires urgent decisions to be made.”

Rattatak? _Force be with us._ “I'll do my best to be quick.”

“Do we have to be there?” Leia asked. She did her best to stay level, but there was only so much the ten-year-old could take.

“No, you two can have some time to yourselves.” Padme turned to Shmi and Obi-Wan, both of whom looked puzzled. Rattatak didn't mean anything to them. “I'd rather you two be present, though, given the subject matter.”

Shmi nodded. Obi-Wan bowed his head. “As you wish, ma'am.”

As Breha turned towards the tower to lead everyone in, Padme fell into step next to Bail. “I need a favour.”

Bail's eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

“A criminal record search for a young smuggler named Han Solo. He flies a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter with a Wookiee named Chewbacca. I'm not sure his accent's Corellian, but it's close enough.”

“I'm curious as to how this came up.”

“He was the only one I could find to take us off Tatooine. The ship's fast and he seems to be smart, but I'm not sure how to keep him around without monetary incentive. He asked fifteen thousand to get the five of us here.”

Bail's eyes widened. “That for a journey of a couple of days?”

Padme nodded, gaze drawn up along the tower by the edges of sunlight decorating its corners. “I told him I'd go two more if he took most of it on arrival, but I'm sure there are several people who'll be happier if a smuggler isn't paid.”

“Leia first and foremost, I imagine.” Bail kept his tone just level enough to make Padme wonder if he was annoyed about that, but he smiled as she glanced up at him. “You taught her well.”

“Perhaps too well,” Padme murmured.

Bail nodded. “I'll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, your Highness.”

 

Mon Mothma's hologram buzzed and flickered as she spoke. “We are now on our way to the reserve base at Dantooine. Our casualties are significant but not destructive.”

Breathe in... breathe out. Bail nodded in acknowledgement of the report. “Is your contingent still able to maintain itself or do we need to send reserves?”

“We'll manage.” Mon's silky calm still unnerved Padme. There had to be some limit to the ability of one person to remain calm in the face of the Empire's full cavalcade of stormtroopers. “Although we will need more medical supplies soon.”

“I'll be able to travel to a base within the next few months if not sooner.” If she had to delay dealing with Anakin for the sake of saving Alliance lives, so be it. That was a bargain too selfish in nature for her to make. “I should be able to bring some medical supplies if they haven't already been provided. Are there any traders in the region who are likely to be discreet?”

“We are investigating as _bzzzzt_ can.”

They could figure out what that was supposed to be. Obi-Wan put a hand to his chin. Padme nodded. “Medical supplies may be difficult to obtain that way, but most other materials should be more accessible. I trust your experience in that matter.”

Mon nodded. “Thank you. We will have the base in order within two weeks. For now no Imperial forces are aware of our presence in the system.”

“They should remain unaware for as long as possible. Dantooine is remote enough that they don't conduct regular patrols there.” Bail's gaze had turned on the table as if the golden wood would respond to the weary glare. “We'll alert everyone who needs to know as soon as possible. May the Force be with you.”

Shmi folded her arms on the edge of the table as the hologram flickered out. Though she said nothing, Padme recognised the empty glow in her eyes. Breha looked around the table, gaze flickering and uncertain before she settled on Obi-Wan. “You were a General in the Clone Wars, Master Kenobi. If you have any recommendations as to the military deployment we've been forced to maintain, they would be welcome.”

He shook his head, gaze falling away from Breha's. “I was a Jedi Master first and foremost. The military work was an unfortunate necessity.”

And a necessity that had taken the heart and soul out of the man. Padme wasn't the only one tearing herself up over what she had to do to bring Anakin home. She cut in to spare Obi-Wan the strain. “Until we know where the Imperial fleet is, it'll be difficult to perform any diverting manoeuvres. Any Bothans that can report should be contacted soon.”

“Do we need diversions at this point?” Breha asked.

“Until the new base is settled and ready, the fleet needs to be kept in doubt. That battle station the Empire's been working on will only be inconsequential as long as it's kept busy with things other than repairs and target practice.” If a fraction of the rumours about that battle station were true, it'd be more of a threat to the Alliance than the rest of the Imperial fleet. Thus far the Force had stayed with them, and the battle station's building had suffered setback after setback, not to mention a near collapse after an incident near the Horuset system. Still, one built meant the possibility of more... and the Emperor wasn't a man for half measures. He'd engineered a galactic war from both sides of the field to gain power, after all – more than ten years of preparation. She'd never expected that from the Trade Federation blockade, and then to have put him one step closer to power by proposing a vote of no confidence...

They had other concerns now. The Rebel Alliance had to survive. “We shouldn't need serious diversions, though. Nothing that will to cause casualties. Quickly in, quickly out, and no ships or pilots left behind.” _Well... one pilot. But we'll pick him back up eventually._

“I see. We'll have to make arrangements later.” Bail put his hands on the table and stood up. “If that's all, there's an official function later that I should attend.”

As the crowd dispersed, Obi-Wan caught the edge of Padme's sleeve. She hadn't changed from the plain dress she'd travelled in. “This Alliance of yours...”

“It's been in place since before Empire Day.” He'd missed the details of that when he hurried off to Tatooine, of course. “At first it was me, the Organas, and Mon trying to resist Palpatine's attempts to change the constitution and his grabs for increased power. It... didn't go too well.” Anakin had been too far gone at that point to put up much of a fight, and with Padme doing most of the talking... she forced the thought aside. “After Empire Day, it turned into a rebellion. One day, we might be back in a state of civil war.”

“That's not much to aspire to.”

“For some reason I doubt we'll make this Empire a democracy again by any other means.” She had to agree with Obi-Wan, but she couldn't back down from the fight she'd thrown herself into, either. The Republic had failed in many ways, but the Empire wasn't here to fix those flaws. “We're not in a position to achieve huge successes, but we're trying. I can only hope we're taking the sting out of the Empire in a few places.”

He forced a smile. “Hoping that one day you'll get the nest?”

“You may have carried that metaphor a little further than it works.”

He shrugged and let the smile fall away. “Your mind's set, I take it.”

“Yes.” He'd challenge her over that now, she could see the interrogation coming. While he was preparing his own words, she forced her nerves to settle and her shoulders back.

“How many people will lose their lives in a fight against the most twisted and cunning man this galaxy has ever seen?” He shook his head as he spoke. Padme winced.

“I don't know. We're not done counting the casualties. But we don't force anyone who doesn't want to be here to stay. We're not treating anyone like the Republic treated the Clones.”

Obi-Wan's eyes went hollow in their sockets. Padme managed to suppress her wince. He'd commanded clones at first, but then Order 66... “Maybe not. But Palpatine is more than just a Sith Lord.” The words clawed for purchase in the air. “That war was a decade in the making, and I don't think he was just an opportunist with the Force behind him. And with... Vader by his side... it'd take another child of the Force just to stop those two, and the Empire is more than those two men.”

“You don't think there's any chance to undo the damage the Emperor did to Anakin?” Shmi asked, somewhere behind Padme.

Obi-Wan reeled back. Padme was half certain she'd see his hair going grey from shock. The old Jedi Master straightened up as Shmi stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Padme and shook himself, eyes focused just beyond the two women. “The Dark Side of the Force is... not something that can be walked away from. Vader is not the boy I trained.”

“Anakin always wanted to help people.” It had led him so far astray, but nonetheless... “He's pledged himself to Palpatine more than the Dark Side. You knew him well, Obi-Wan. You know-”

“I know that he ended the Jedi Order, let the Empire rise, and did it all to save a wife he broke the Jedi Code to wed.” The military flint returned to Obi-Wan's voice as he brought himself up to full height. Padme took a deep breath, the gush of air into her lungs all that prevented her from doing something inadvisable. Like slapping Obi-Wan across the face.

“Excuse me, Mr Kenobi?”

Padme frowned, as did Obi-Wan. Luke was tugging at Obi-Wan's sleeve, his father's lightsaber in one hand. “I've been practicing with that dart sphere... I think it broke...”

“If you could take care of that, please, Obi-Wan. I think I need to catch Shmi up on current events.” Shoulders back, spine straight. Queen and Senator.

He nodded and turned away without saying a word. Luke frowned at Padme, then trotted after Obi-Wan.

“Getting him on a ship was the easy part,” Padme muttered. “I'm sorry you had to hear that, Shmi. He doesn't seem to have much hope left.”

Shmi shook her head, gaze still turned down the corridor that Obi-Wan had stormed off down. “He trained Anakin. It must be hard for him to face... what Anakin's done.”

That gave Padme pause. She nodded as she turned the thought over. Obi-Wan had blamed himself for Qui-Gon's death too – not openly, but she'd heard his comments, the things he should have done and didn't. He'd had ten years to despair out on Tatooine as well. “It must be. But he can't wallow in his failures for the rest of his life. If the galaxy is to pay the price for all of our mistakes in raising Anakin, we can at least try to protect what remains.”

Shmi frowned. Padme took a deep breath and tried to force Obi-Wan out of her mind. She couldn't deal with Shmi while acting like the Queen and Senator she'd been. That wouldn't get her anywhere with a woman who'd lived her entire life so far away from the politics of the Republic. _Not to mention it'd be unfair._ “That does complicate any plan to rescue Anakin. Even if I think there's still good in him, he will obey the Emperor under most circumstances. It'll be difficult to take him away from the Emperor without creating danger for volunteers in the Alliance.”

“Possible, though?”

Padme forced a smile. “If it isn't, I'll make it possible.”

 

Luke was being silly. Leia folded her arms and glared as he waved the lightsaber around. It was too big for his hands. Obi-Wan was still bubbling with a quiet anger after talking to Mother, but he didn't seem bothered by Luke and his yelping as the little hovering drone shot darts into the air.

“I can't see a thing in this helmet!”

“Your eyes can deceive you.” Obi-Wan stroked his beard and nodded as Luke carried on deflecting darts. Leia sighed and rolled her eyes. The ceiling didn't care that she rolled her eyes at it. That lightsaber hadn't been enough in Father's last duel, although maybe that wasn't his fault. The Dark Side was brash and senseless, Mother had said. What she knew about it when she wasn't 'Force sensitive' Leia didn't know, but maybe Father had explained enough back when they lived in the same apartment.

“Still.”

He'd get annoyed if Leia told him he was being silly, so she stayed quiet in her corner of the room. There had to better ways of dealing with a threat than waving a glowing sword around, even if it could deflect blaster bolts. The helmet rocked back and forth on Luke's head as he swung himself around to bring the lightsaber's blue blade where he wanted it.

After a while, Obi-Wan got to his feet and said, “Enough.”

The buzzing drone went silent and clunked to the floor. The lightsaber blade vanished. “I'm getting better, though.” Luke pushed the helmet off his head and held it in one hand, as if he didn't know where to put it.

Leia harrumphed, just loud enough for Luke to hear and twitch, but not for Obi-Wan to hear. He picked up the drone, then looked down at Luke. “It takes a long time to become skilled with a lightsaber, Luke. Don't rush.”

“How long did it take Father?”

Obi-Wan winced. “He... the Force was strong with him, you have to understand that. He found it easier to learn than most did. Even so, it was years before he became truly skilled.”

“Doesn't Force sensisisi... sensitivity run in the family?” Luke tugged at his hair. Leia didn't understand why he liked it that long when he never wanted to tie it back.

Obi-Wan frowned at that and put a hand over his beard. “It might. It's hard to say. The Jedi of the Republic didn't... usually have families, so there's no conclusive data.”

“Just because there aren't sussisics doesn't mean it isn't true.”

Obi-Wan's frown deepened. “Sussisics?”

“Statistics,” Leia announced. “He can't say it right.”

Luke glared at her over his shoulder. She delivered a cold smile back, a perfect practiced smile she'd learnt from her mother. Politics was difficult, but at least it wasn't messy and bloody the way war was. But it was funny that Luke couldn't say 'statistics' right.

Obi-Wan sighed. “I suppose you're right, Luke, but I can't say much more than that. I don't know if there is a connection. Don't use that lightsaber when you're on your own. You'll hurt yourself with it.”

Luke bit his lip, but nodded. Leia got up to stand next to him as Obi-Wan hurried out of the room. “How did the Jedi manage with glowing swords when everyone else had blasters?”

“It can deflect blaster bolts.” Luke shrugged and dropped the helmet. It thunked on the floor like a falling brick. “You'd have to get really close to whoever you were fighting, though. But it's a Jedi weapon.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “Do you think that helps?”

“They were the best fighters in the galaxy!”

“Do you really think fighting Father is going to bring him home?”

Luke fell silent, staring at the door that had closed behind Obi-Wan. Leia looked at her feet. That had been mean of her. “I'm sorry.”

“You're right, though. Mother and Grandmother are going to have to talk to him.”

“We won't be allowed to go. It's too dangerous.” Why Leia said that she didn't know. Luke knew that. It was Leia who was forever being scolded by Bail for doing something reckless or being somewhere she shouldn't have been.

“I know.” Luke sighed and folded his arms, poking Leia with the end of the lightsaber. She slapped his arm, but he didn't react. “I want to see him. Even if...”

“I know.”

Luke hung his head. Leia put an arm around his shoulders. “He'll be back soon. Mother and Grandmother... they're not going to let go. We'll get to see Father the way he was meant to be.”

Luke nodded, a firm and sharp motion that made Leia shudder. “He'll come home.”

 

Padme slumped back in the couch and sighed. “Force be with us. Has the Emperor no conscience?”

“I was given the impression he had none.” Shmi looked on in polite but unconcealed confusion.

Padme nodded as she straightened up and started reading again. “After what he did to the Republic, I can only agree... but the Emperor is from Naboo. We knew each other for a long time. He was a Senator when I first became Queen of Naboo, so we dealt with each other often... he was the picture of gentility. It took me far too long to see the signs of what he was doing. And not just what he did to Anakin.” She shook her head and stared at the chart in front of her. The numbers weren't helping her make sense of the situation, but they were long enough that she could assume the scale of the disaster was immense. “All this just for one rebel base...”

“The Emperor hasn't made a move against anyone in the Senate who opposed him before he created the Empire?” Shmi asked.

“Not to my knowledge. I'm supposed to be dead, and I was the most vocal. The Organas seem to have managed. Mon went underground, much like I did.” She shrugged and took another look at the holo-images of the destroyed base. If she hadn't known the layout of it already, she'd have had trouble placing the patches of stone as the remnants of a building. “The Senate is losing power, though. The Emperor's consulting with them less and less often under the guise of making government more efficient.” She shoved the collection of holo-projectors on the table aside and sighed. “Of course, the Senate was inefficient and prone to stalling even when I was Queen, so it's an innocuous enough concern. Still, he's sweeping away as much of the democracy as he can.”

Shmi shook her head. “Why did the Republic suffer the Senate if it was so inefficient?”

Padme stalled, hands frozen above the clutter on the table. Anakin had held views that Shmi's query formed an echo of; Padme had let it go, since that had been when they'd been alone on Naboo, and with Geonosis and the outbreak of the Clone Wars so soon after, she'd forgotten about it. But of course, to slaves in the Outer Rim so far away from the Senate and forgotten about in their plight... “Democracy is difficult. There's a fine line to walk between giving the people what they want and giving the people what they need. The Senate became too cautious in walking that line.”

“Mother...”

Luke and Leia stood in the doorway. Luke had put the lightsaber away somewhere and was squinting past his fringe. “I'm hungry,” Leia declared.

Shmi smiled. Padme got to her feet and nodded. “It shouldn't be long before dinner. You might want to get dressed in something a little nicer than what you've been travelling in.” That meant a white dress of a finer material, for Leia, but nonetheless, certain standards had to be maintained.

“Did you pay that smuggler?”

So she wasn't going to let go of that. Padme forced herself not to smile and shook her head. “Not yet. I'm waiting for Bail to find out something for me before I pay anyone.”

Luke sat down next to Shmi as Leia hurried off to her own room. “I'm getting better with the lightsaber. Maybe I could learn to handle it like Father did one day.”

Padme forced a smile, for all that the thought sent spikes of ice running through her lungs. Anakin had been an excellent fighter, and Luke, unlike his sister, would never be a politician. “Maybe so, Luke. You should get changed too.”

As he nodded and scurried off, Shmi raised a worried gaze to Padme. “I'm afraid I don't have much better by way of clothing...”

“Not to worry.” To that Padme could muster a more genuine smile. “We'll be able to find something in the palace that you can wear, and if all else fails many of my old gowns could be tailored to fit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final sentence of my notes for the next chapter is 'Chewbacca rolls his eyes at all of them'. I'll leave you speculate what that's referring to.


	4. One Foot In the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helpful information moves Padme's plan along nicely, but small children and young smugglers may cause distractions at inopportune moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! I suspect many of you are happier than I am about that, given that I know what I've got written in the plan for the next few chapters.  
> It's a bit... bitty, this chapter. I had to get a bunch of characters from one place to another, and that doesn't really lend itself to prolonged scenes dealing with a particular topic. (Either that or I'm writing my travel scenes all wrong, which wouldn't be beyond belief by any means.)

Bail inclined his head as Padme opened the door. “Good morning. I heard back about that smuggler of yours... and also another matter that may be of interest.”

“Another matter?” That was a strange way to phrase it. “Come in. The children are still asleep.”

“And Shmi?”

“Asleep as well, I think, although I doubt there'd be any harm done were she to hear anything.” Padme gave Bail an arch look. He nodded, cheeks reddening as he stepped inside and crossed the room to the couch. “What is it you've found out? Tell me about the smuggler first.”

“The smuggler Han Solo is on record for being involved with the Hutts and their spice smuggling. The Wookiee copilot you mentioned isn't on record, but we can assume that he's an accessory to the smuggling, or else he's deep in debt to the smuggler.”

Padme frowned. “The smuggler can't be more than twenty, and that's being generous. What would he have done to earn that kind of loyalty from a Wookiee?”

Bail shrugged, as upright in his seat as a chimney stack. “Wookiees take life debts very seriously, I believe. If brought to Imperial forces, our smuggler could be facing some time in jail, if not penance work on Mustafar.”

That drew another frown from Padme. “They use Mustafar as a prison planet now?”

“There's not much else to do, with all that lava.” Bail shrugged and cleared his throat before moving on. He'd heard about what had happened on Mustafar, or at least parts of it. How much the twins had filled in, Padme couldn't say. “He's still docked here, waiting on payment. What do you intend to do with him?”

Bail couldn't assume that Padme would want him sent to Imperial forces, of course. She sat down across the table from Bail and leaned into the plush backrest. “We'll see. What was that other matter?”

Bail shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “That battle station that the Emperor's had so little luck in finishing...”

She could feel muscles tighten around her eyes. Shoulders back. Queen and Senator. “Has unexpected progress been made?”

Bail shook his head. “Not yet. The Emperor has ordered an elite division of the army to move construction at a faster pace. He's sending Darth Vader with them. The station is in the Mid Rim at the moment. Sensors at Dantooine and Rattatak have managed to give a more exact location.”

Padme's breath caught in her throat. “So we know where he is.”

“Padme?” Concern made his voice warble.

She shook herself and straightened up, trying to restrain her smile. “I think I know exactly what to do with that smuggler.”

 

Han threw his hands up and turned towards the belly of the ship. “Have it your way, your worshipfulness.”

Where he'd got that honorific from Padme still couldn't discern – no place she'd ever visited had used it, though she'd never been to Corellia. The longer she listened to him, the more she became suspicious of his accent. “I imagine a pardon will be much more valuable to you than time in the Empire's jails.”

He didn't say anything or turn around, but he had to be scowling. Someone came hurrying up to the ship as Padme stood there, unsure whether to say more or leave the irate young smuggler to his business.

“Did you hear about C-3PO?” Leia asked, grabbing Padme's hand. Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of Han, pottering around behind the lowered boarding ramp. “Are you still here?”

He looked up, the already present scowl getting darker as he saw Leia. “Good morning, princess.” From inside the ship, Chewbacca emitted a warning growl. Who for, Padme couldn't tell.

Leia dignified him with a scowl before carrying on, tugging at her mother's arm. “He took a stumble and broke a leg, so he's been in repair for a few weeks, but he's back now, and he's talking more than ever, but it's never in Basic. Something they did must have scrambled the language circuits.”

Padme nodded, half her mind tuned into something far removed from the travails of Anakin's old protocol droid. “Bail has a relative who handles droids well, if there's nothing Luke can do.” She'd have to leave the children here with the Organas, of course, and it could be a while before it was safe to bring Anakin here even if he turned on the Empire as soon as he caught sight of her and Shmi – if nothing else, for his sake. The Emperor wouldn't take kindly to losing his sword and tool. She suppressed a shudder and lifted her head to find Han under the ship again. “You won't be going far from here, I assume.”

“Wouldn't dare, your worshipfulness.”

“I'll tell you when we're ready to leave, then.”

“You're going?” Leia's voice rose to a worried squeak as she wrapped her other hand around Padme's.

Han looked up and took a lazy step closer. “Business between me and the lady, little girl. Don't you worry yourself about it.”

With a hiss, Leia tore herself away from Padme and stamped towards the smuggler. Though she was much shorter than Han, something about her expression must have given the young smuggler pause. “And what do you think you know about it, you scruffy-looking nerf herder?”

“Who's scruffy-looking?” Han drew back from the small and angry ten-year-old in front of him – poor Breha having to dress that determined little girl – with his lips curling in indignation.

“Leia.” That wasn't an argument that she was as well prepared for as she thought. “Leave him be. He's been helpful enough.”

Leia scowled at both the smuggler and her mother before hurrying off again.

Han turned back to Padme as soon as Leia was out of earshot. “So I'll have the ship ready and we'll go when you're all set?” He forced a dulcet tone into his voice to cover the irritation that Leia had provoked. For all that her anger was the untempered idealistic anger of a young child, Han himself wasn't old enough to see past the insults and furious stamping to and fro.

“Yes.” Padme nodded, forcing her shoulders back and her voice to calm. Leia could rattle anyone's nerves when she got into one of her righteous moods. “Thank you, Captain.”

 

Shmi didn't seem inclined to say much, but there was a new urgency, steady as it was, in her step as she folded the clothes she'd been given together. Padme glared at her commlink and the view through the transparisteel each in turn. “How far away can Obi-Wan be?”

“You don't think he'd had left the tower?” Shmi asked, somewhere behind Padme, who shook her head.

“He's not in the physical condition he used to be, and public transport doesn't come too close to the tower, not to mention he doesn't have much reason to leave. I'd be surprised if he'd gone past the gardens.” Though from what she remembered of their travels when Qui-Gon Jinn was still alive, Obi-Wan could be reckless on occasion, but the loss of his own Master and the sudden responsibility of training Anakin had made him grow severe in short order. How much of that severity had withstood Tatooine's demanding climate remained to be seen.

He turned up a few minutes later. “You asked for me?”

Padme nodded, forcing her shoulders back. Persuading Obi-Wan of the necessity of this would be harder than cajoling him onto a ship. “I've heard that Anakin is to be sent with an elite troop to the Emperor's battle station in order to speed along the construction. Captain Solo will take us there as soon as it's practicable to leave. Shmi and I are almost ready to leave. I'd appreciate your being in a state to leave as soon as possible, before we take our leave of the Organas.”

The old Jedi Master frowned. “The battle station? How is an unauthorised ship supposed to gain entry there?”

“They'll tractor in any ship that comes too close without authorisation. Captain Solo has smuggling compartments in his ship that will allow us to hide should such be necessary to avoid any searches that the troops... working at the station might conduct on the ship.” She'd almost said 'stationed at the station', which would have been an awkward if accurate – tautological, possibly – way to phrase it. “Since only a small part of the station is functional for the time being, the area we'll need to search is limited.”

“This station is the size of a small moon, Padme. Searching even a fraction of it could take many hours. The longer you stay, the more you risk being discovered.” Despite the warning he attempted to give, his eyes were bright. Strange, after his reticence, but Padme couldn't dwell on it.

“That's a risk I'll have to take. For once we know exactly where Anakin is and what he'll be doing. The longer we leave him in the grip of the Emperor, the more atrocities he'll be forced to carry out in its name.” She held her voice in a stern grip. Having it crack wouldn't help. “Are you ready to leave, Master Kenobi?”

He stayed silent for a long moment, folding his arms as Padme waited for a response. She couldn't let him force her to speak first. She was doing what she could. He had to act as well, either in favour of Padme's plan or not, but he couldn't stay in the hole of self-pity that he'd dug himself into after Mustafar.

He dropped his chin to his chest. “I'll be ready to leave as soon as you are.”

“Wonderful.” Padme turned to Shmi, about to ask how her packing was coming along.

“That's everything.” Shmi closed the case and gave the shy smile that Padme remembered so well from Anakin.

“Excellent.” Padme drew herself up. “I'll get my case, and then we'll say goodbye to the Organas and the children.”

 

Luke and Leia excused themselves from around the marble table as soon as possible, both looking downcast. Breha watched them go and sighed. “I do hope you can return to them, Padme. This is an incredible risk you're taking.”

“I know. But I have to.” If she thought about it for a while, she could justify saving Anakin without making any reference to her own feelings. Darth Vader was the sword that beheaded those the Empire deemed traitors – the Emperor himself didn't care to act more than necessary, shielding himself behind the actions of those he made tools. To take as powerful a tool as Vader away from him would strike a blow to him, not to mention deprive the Imperials of a rallying point and one of the terrors used to control less compliant stormtroopers, and prove that the Rebel Alliance had enough power behind it to be believed in.

But those were all obfuscations, true but inaccurate. Still, it wouldn't be becoming to say so.

Bail sighed. “Take good care of yourself, Padme. And you two as well, Shmi, Obi-Wan.”

The pair nodded. Padme still couldn't put her finger on the sudden blankness that had come over Obi-Wan. What revelation had brought about such a rapid change in demeanour? The Jedi occasionally had visions, like those Anakin had suffered of her dying in childbirth, and before that Shmi's misfortunes at the hands of Tusken Raiders... but she couldn't ask about it either. She got to her feet. “Take good care of the children while I'm gone. I'll try to send word as soon as we're safe.”

Breha nodded, standing to embrace Padme. “Of course. They'll be safe as long as we're safe.”

Goodbyes concluded with appropriate formality, Padme left the tower, Shmi and Obi-Wan trailing behind. Obi-Wan's quietness still bothered Padme, but she couldn't hesitate. Any hesitation on her part could be the end of this enterprise, given that she was the one who'd suggested the entire thing. Though Shmi seemed willing enough, Padme had her doubts about Shmi's ability to carry out this entire plan herself. Life on Tatooine wouldn't equip anyone for the life of the Rebel Alliance. Her own political training found itself on shaky ground often enough, but she'd learnt to run over the top of it as quick as possible and try to ignore her sense of balance.

That'd have to do to get Anakin back home.

Han greeted them outside the Millennium Falcon, smirk toned down a little. “Your worshipfulness.”

If nothing else, he was consistent with his honorifics. “Captain Solo.” Padme inclined her head. “We're ready to go.”

“Excellent. Head right on up.” He stepped aside and lifted a hand to gesture at the boarding ramp. Chewbacca appeared just inside the ship. It was hard to read any facial expressions on the Wookiee, but he hadn't proved antagonistic on the last trip, so Padme considered it not worth worrying about him.

Obi-Wan stared around the main hold of the ship as if he'd never seen it before. Padme rolled her eyes at him behind his back. “Are you well, Obi-Wan?”

“Sorry? Oh, yes, yes. Quite well.” His hand settled under his chin, concealing enough of his face in the process that Padme couldn't figure out what the odd light in his eyes might mean.

Han sauntered towards the cockpit, followed by Chewbacca. “You might want to sit down. It can get interesting jumping into hyperspace this close to the Deep Core.”

“Oh, the gravity wells.” Padme nodded and gestured for Shmi to join her around the Dejarik table. Obi-Wan took a seat to the other side of Shmi, keeping his distance and saying nothing more. The captain of the ship offered no further comment, and before long Padme could feel the ship wobbling underfoot as it left the ground.

“Shall we play a game?” Shmi suggested, after directing a puzzled – and perhaps slightly concerned – glance at Obi-Wan.

Padme nodded. “It'll pass the time, if nothing else.”

 

Shmi proved to be a shrewd Dejarik player, and Padme's ineptitude and inexperience soon handed her a loss. Shmi smiled as the holo-figures vanished from the table. “It's not a game you learn to play well in one sitting.”

“Was it popular on Tatooine?” Padme asked, leaning back into the chair. It was a little harder than her back liked, but this ship wasn't designed for comfort, and that was one area that the young smuggler was unlikely to have thought to make improvements to.

Shmi shrugged. “It was played in enough places that most people knew of it, and the children used to play imitation versions with stone figures.”

Padme nodded. Tatooine was a world so far removed from her own upbringing, and knowing Anakin couldn't bring her all the way into that world, for all that she'd tried to see where he was coming from.

Han stuck his head through the entrance to the main hold. “We're in hyperspace, coordinates set for where you wanted to go.” He avoided meeting Padme's eyes. He had his own reasons not to want to be anywhere near Imperial power centres. “I do hope this plan of yours works, your worshipfulness. I'm not sure I'd want to trust smuggling compartments on the biggest battle station that's ever been built.” After a moment and a sideways glance, he added, “If they ever actually build the thing. How long have they been talking about it now, ten years?”

“A little less.” Any more detail than that and Padme's memory would go down a dark path. She didn't need help with that right now.

Han seemed about to reply, but a clattering sound made him cock his head, frowning. Obi-Wan started out of his meditative doze, eyes widening. Shmi frowned. Padme half rose from her seat, impeded from moving any further by the table in front of her. “I don't think that's a good sound to hear on board a ship.”

“It's not.” The young smuggler turned around and hurried off along the ship corridor. By the clapping sound of boots on the floor, he came to a halt a couple of steps out of sight of the three in the main hold. Padme shook her head and stepped out from behind the table. Just around the corner, Han shouted, “What the hell is wrong with you kids?”

At Han's own age, there weren't that many people he was in a position to be referring to as 'kids'. Padme frowned as she stepped out into the corridor. Shmi and Obi-Wan didn't move.

Han stood with his arms folded, glaring down at the floor. Padme followed his gaze and stalled as she saw Luke and Leia climbing out of a hollow in the base of the ship, Leia staring up at Han with a stubborn pout of a kind that often meant difficult conversations to follow.

It took Padme a minute to shake herself free of her shock. “This was incredibly reckless of you both.” Her voice couldn't stay level. Never mind. “You know where we're going. It's not safe for you.”

“It's not safe for you either, is it?” Leia returned, still looking at Han. That was a grudge she wasn't going to let go of in a hurry. Luke just looked abashed behind his hair.

Padme sighed and forced her shoulders back, as much for the sake of calm as for retaining something resembling poise. Poise and rationality could fall out of the window quickly in situations like this. “I can protect myself. You two can't, no matter how much Luke might have practised with that lightsaber.”

“I left that on Alderaan.” He looked up with his usual guileless expression. If she asked, he'd blame this entire escapade on Leia, no doubt, and often as not he was telling the truth, but if he hadn't put his foot down against this, Padme found herself considering him complicit in the foolishness.

Han muttered something under his breath about small nuisances. “The coordinates are set, and bringing the ship around would take a while. What do you say, your worshipfulness?”

Padme's words caught in her throat. She should have made him turn around, but that meant wasted time, and that was the last thing she wanted. It only took a few minutes to step off that battle station, and she had no idea how long Anakin would be there. And if she sent Han back with the children after they arrived at the station, they'd be hard pressed to leave, regardless of whether Anakin could be brought around. For some reason Padme got the feeling even Vader's name might not be enough to prevent trouble should a ship leave the station when it wasn't supposed to. Han had to stay.

She took a deep breath. “They'll have to stay. I might have to leave them in your care while we're on the battle station.”

“Your worshipfulness -”

“I'm not staying behind with a smuggler,” Leia announced, folding her arms and standing as tall as her ten-year-old self could manage. Luke stood next to his sister, hands fidgeting like he wanted to grab Leia's, but couldn't.

Padme suppressed a sigh. Arguing now wouldn't improve matters in the slightest. “We'll see. We have a little time before we get there.”

Han threw his hands up and turned around. “Have it your way. This can only end badly.”

Padme glared down at the twins as Han stamped away. “This was incredibly reckless.”

“It was Leia's idea,” Luke said, looking down. Leia elbowed him in the side and gave him a sharp look that he probably didn't see from behind his hair. Padme sighed.

“And you didn't say no when she suggested it to you?”

He shrugged. Padme waited, folding her arms. Children could be recalcitrant in providing answers when they knew they were in trouble. _Patience is a virtue_. After a while, he piped up, “I want to see Father.”

“He's not in a good state right now, Luke. You know that.”

He shrugged. “We'll bring him home.”

 _We._ Somehow Padme didn't have the heart to contradict him on that. “You two come and sit down.” _There's nothing else to do with the poor fools._

Shmi hurried over to the entrance to the main cockpit as Padme stepped into the room with its faint scent of oil and grease and picked the twins up, one in each arm. “I heard all of that. What you two are doing is incredibly dangerous.” The words were rushed and breathy. Even Leia softened at her grandmother's concern.

Obi-Wan, meanwhile, had his eyes shut and seemed to be if not asleep then at least in a deep doze if not some form of meditative trance. After that long absence on Tatooine, Padme didn't feel confident that she could judge that to be unusual behaviour. Pain changed people, and Obi-Wan hadn't built up much resilience.

For all that she could understand that, his passive acceptance of what Anakin had been shaped into by the Emperor still made bile rise in her throat.

The twins were both blushing when Shmi set them down. “You'll behave from now on, won't you?” Shmi asked them, crouching down to make herself their height. They both nodded, faces serious. Padme forced herself to breathe slowly and smile. Forward now. That battle station would doubtless present multiple challenges.

 

“If your worshipfulness would like to drop into the cockpit for a moment?”

Padme had to stuff down a laugh at the sight of Han's supercilious smile. He'd even buttoned his waistcoat. What was he putting in the effort for? “Is there something unexpected?”

“Well, I hope not, but I wanted to check with the person responsible for this trip.”

Padme rolled her eyes as he vanished around the corner and followed him to the cockpit, where Chewbacca greeted her with a low growl. Han slumped into the chair on the left and pointed out through the window.

Against the cold darkness of space, a cold maw of careful and deliberate cruelty cut a grey relief. The station would be spherical once completed, but now only one side was completed, and the beginnings of structure hung off what was already completed like abandoned strings. Padme's breath caught as she studied the view.

“And you want to go inside that?” Han asked, the cocksure smugness evaporating into the silence that his soft comment cut into.

Padme nodded. “I do.”

The smuggler nodded and started hitting controls, then frowned. “Looks like they've got a tractor beam working already.”

As expected. Padme nodded. Han looked up at her, tightening his jaw. “I don't like this one bit, lady.”

“It was never going to be an enjoyable trip.”

Chewbacca shook his head and growled at Han, who lifted a finger as if to scold the Wookiee before thinking better of it and turning back to the controls. “I'll try to make the ship look abandoned. You might want to get your family ready to hide in those smuggling compartments, since you seem to think that's necessary.”

Padme bit back the retort that came to mind. She didn't want to explain her familiarity with the procedures that the Empire had inherited to this smuggler, however helpful he was being. “Thank you, Captain Solo.”

As she turned to leave the cockpit, Chewbacca growled. She left the argument between captain and first mate behind her, breathing in and out to a count of four and hoping that her heartbeat would settle long enough to allow her to get Shmi and Obi-Wan – and those fool twins – ready to jump into the Empire's fanged mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may or may not get to read a scene from Vader's POV in the next chapter. I make no promises.  
> I can, however, promise you more of Leia's antics, this time involving blasters.


	5. A Lighthouse in the Dark Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *very quiet Imperial March in the background*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the author upsets herself while writing and may have gotten a key POV incredibly wrong, but will carry on regardless because she is in too deep to just cut her losses.  
> I wanted to get this done yesterday, actually, since I'd written one half of the Very Difficult POV, but I had to go for a vaccine which resulted in my arm aching something vicious for most of the afternoon, and I get frustrated trying to type with one hand, I'm so used to using both. (One hand is just too slow.) Still, it's done, voila, I don't think I'll write much else today.

“We're going to have to disable the tractor beam before we can get out,” Han commented over his shoulder as he pulled the stormtrooper helmet on. “And what do you suggest we do about our sleeping friends?”

“They can go in the smuggling compartments,” Shmi offered before Padme could speak. “By the time they've come round and figured out where they are, it'll be late for them to raise the alarm.”

“It'll be difficult for them to get out, too,” Leia announced. “It's dark down there.”

Padme nodded. Ribs creaked as she took a deep breath. “That'll do. I don't know about the tractor beam. On a space station this powerful, there might well be several terminals, and without an astromech droid it might be hard to find out where they are.”

“So we need R2-D2?” Leia asked, tugging at Padme's sleeve.

“We do.”

“If we can find a computer terminal, I might be able to help...” Luke looked up, hair falling out of his eyes as he directed an imploring gaze at his mother.

Padme stalled. “...Yes. We'll see if we can find one.”

Obi-Wan watched Luke with a weary gaze. In the expectant silence, he shook himself. “I'll go to the terminal and disable it. I'll have a better chance of going unnoticed.”

“Going it alone is dangerous business,” Han commented, voice muffled by the stormtrooper mask. “You sure you want to be that much of a fool, old man?”

“Who's more foolish? The fool, or the fool that follows him?” Obi-Wan returned, eyebrows rising. Padme frowned. 'Non-sequiteur' wasn't the word she wanted, but it was an odd pronouncement to make.

The shoulder pads of the stormtrooper armour scraped against other panels as Han shrugged. “Have it your way. What do you want me to do, your worshipfulness?”

“There'll be an office overlooking the hangar.” _You hope._ “If we're going to get out of the hangar safely, we'll need to remove any troopers there. It's also our best bet on finding a computer terminal that Luke might be able to use.” Did Bail and Breha know about the amount of time he must have spent tinkering with computers to even suggest that he'd be useful?

Han sighed. “I understand. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

 

He did indeed return in short order. Luke and Leia had both retreated behind Shmi and Padme respectively. Taking them with her still sent chills through Padme's bones, but leaving them on the ship wouldn't be safe either. _The little fools._ “All clear, your worshipfulness.”

Padme nodded and started past the smuggler down the ramp, Leia clinging to her arm. Obi-Wan and Shmi followed not far behind, with Han and Chewbacca, who'd been quiet for a while now, bringing up the rear.

The office that overlooked the hangar seemed to be panelled in computer screens, many of which showed the hangar from various angles. Perhaps redundant given the window, but they weren't here to discuss the details of battle station design.

Luke hurried to a computer terminal as soon as the door was closed and started tapping buttons. “I'm sorry if I'm slow. This is a bigger computer than I've ever seen before.”

Still watching Luke with a blank calm in his expression, Obi-Wan slumped into a chair and started to stroke his beard. Something about the way he was acting didn't sit right with Padme, but it might have been unfounded suspicion.

Then again, the last time she'd thought that about a person, he'd turned out to be a cunning Sith Lord with a decade-long plot to bring down the (struggling, to be fair) democracy of the Republic and put himself in power over the galaxy. The office was colourless – all grey durasteel and dark control panels.

“I think I found a map!” Luke's surprised chirp preceded the appearance of an image on the screen in front of him of a circular entity with lines sketched across it, marking the parts that were yet to be built, Padme had to assume. Han folded his arms, then lifted one to pull the helmet off his head. Shaking out his hair as if being inside the helmet had made it damp, he commented, “That's one smart kid you've got there, your worshipfulness.”

Padme could only nod. “Obi-Wan? Is this useful?”

He got to his feet and crossed the room, putting a hand on the back of the chair that Luke perched on as he studied the plans. Chewbacca let out a low growl, to which Han responded, “Not our business.”

Obi-Wan nodded and stepped away, turning to face Padme and Shmi. “I can find one of the terminals. That should divert enough of the tractor beam's power that we'll be able to get away.”

Padme nodded. “Thank you. You find the terminal, and Shmi and I will attempt to locate Anakin. Luke, Leia, you'll need to stay with us.” Obi-Wan's eyelid twitched as she said Anakin's name. She took a deep breath and turned to Han. “You and Chewbacca can do as you think best, but I have left instructions with the Organa family in case you return without us.”

To the young smuggler's credit, he only nodded. “We'd best stay here and mind the ship, see that no one gets up to any shenanigans.”

How much better it would be if Leia could be persuaded to stay behind. Padme forced her shoulders back. _Queen and Senator. My life is for the people I'm sworn to. Once it was Naboo, now it's the Alliance. And Anakin._ “Thank you for your service, Captain. We'll see you back here.”

 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the new presence found a mirror image of itself, but through the aches and pains, he couldn't find a name or face to go with the bright hum in the Force that felt so out of place next to the chill of the battle station's nameless, faceless personnel. A group of people made in his image, a pristine white mockery of a dark cybernetic prison.

His cape snapped against the floor as he paced along the corridor, passing by oblivious stormtroopers and officers whose tongues seemed to tie themselves the moment he passed them.

He'd forgotten about sandstorms. It had been ten years since the scraping rush – that sound had been the bane of his life, once – had last filled his ears, but now the Force told him that something was out of place, and the confused strums on strings that he'd been so sure had snapped made his chest shake as the respirator forced air in and out of tar-coated lungs. Storms were for those who still had nerves and hearts to feel. This storm had no business between his ears.

The view was always bloody from behind this mask, but now he thought he might be seeing red again. Whose idea had it been to introduce something of that magnitude to the station? Force, even the blindest eye must have sensed the sparks shivering somewhere beneath his feet. This battle station would be quite the technological terror if it was ever finished, but despite its size just a few bright spots in the Force could fill it up.

“Er... Lord Vader?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

He didn't know who the pasty lieutenant in front of him was. He didn't care. The officer cleared his throat, once, twice. _If he does it again I may just strangle him._ But he began to speak again. “Do you need anything, sir? You appear to be looking for... something...”

He hesitated. Stormtroopers could cover ground with greater efficiency than he could.

But the Force wasn't hungry for people sensitive to it. Those stormtroopers could walk right past any one of those sparks – how many were there? They split and merged and moved, and he could only concentrate on them for so long before electric jolts brought him back into the crude matter of the world that this petty officer lived in. “No. This is something I must handle myself.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, sir.” Even before he was done speaking, he was backing away.

Never mind him. He turned away and carried on pacing along the corridors. He needed to go down a couple of levels. This sort of disturbance could not be left ignored.

Down, down, through grey and shades of fury and then he caught the edge of familiarity, a presence he knew.

“Kenobi.” The word rasped through the grille of the mask.

Kenobi had walked away, taking the weapon of which he'd once said 'this weapon is your life'. Obi-Wan had taken away what the Emperor had replaced with artifice so taut in its readiness to act that it became painful.

His _Master_ had come back. And what for but to finish what he'd started on Mustafar?

Whining gales in his head drowned out the thoughts that he had to voice. “So this is how you have chosen to end it, Kenobi. So be it.”

There were other lights in the sandstorm too, but the tornado that could cut away stone and flesh was enough. His steps beat out a military rhythm as he followed the single beacon he could sense. The one that would lead him to the third slave master.

 

They'd been walking for some time when Padme rounded a corner to see a troop of stormtroopers, who all stepped back in unison, as startled as she felt.

“There's a pirate on board!” Shmi called, pulling Luke and Leia closer to her as the stormtroopers fumbled for blasters. “Ran off that way!” She pointed down the length of the corridor, in the direction that Padme's group had been travelling before turning at the T-junction.

One of the leaders of the troop nodded and gestured in the direction that Shmi had pointed. The rest of the group broke into an even jog, and they hurried off, armour clattering.

“Good thinking, Shmi.”

Shmi shrugged. “Sometimes it was necessary.”

She probably didn't want to know what circumstances might make it necessary. “They're unlikely to be the last group we encounter.”

She'd barely started walking again before a pair of troopers, stragglers from the last troop perhaps, appeared from beyond the curve of the corridor. One of them stopped dead and pointed. “Intruders!”

No use in hesitating. Padme pulled out her blaster and fired off two shots in rapid succession. She caught the stormtrooper on the left a little more towards the shoulder than she liked, but they both slumped.

Shmi nodded, expression drawn. “You've been in fights before.”

Padme nodded, forcing her breathing to slow down as she tucked the blaster away. “A few.”

Luke's head drooped, hiding his face beneath his hair. Leia stood straight, but so stiff in the back that she must have been concentrating hard on that one thing. Perhaps being here had impressed the seriousness of the situation they were in. But it was too late to get them to safety. “We have to keep moving.” She forced her legs to moving again. _Queen and Senator._ She'd been in tense situations with high stakes before.

Twenty paces beyond the collapsed stormtroopers, Luke piped up, “Are you coming, Leia?”

Padme turned. Leia straightened up from perusal of the stormtroopers' armour. “Of course!” She hurried to catch up, straightening out her dress.

“It's important that you stay close, Leia. This is a dangerous place.”

She nodded. Shmi, standing behind Leia now the young girl had hurried to join her brother, shook her head. Padme flashed an understanding smile before leading the group onwards. They had plenty of ground to cover yet.

As far as Padme could tell, the station's corridors formed sweeping arcs intersected by straight corridors running from the centre out, with the occasional anomaly like the T-junction they'd just passed created by rooms of irregular sizes. Finding any sort of command centre or bridge would be difficult, on a station intended to be spherical, and of course Anakin wouldn't always be there. Still, Luke and Leia would have some Force sensitivity, and they seemed to get more wide-eyed the further in this direction they travelled, so Padme went with instinct and carried on along the curving corridor.

“Should we go up?” Luke asked, just as Padme caught sight of a set of elevators set into the wall next to another junction.

“I think that might be a good idea.” Shmi nodded. “I've got a feeling...”

Padme had never thought to ask whether Shmi had any degree of Force sensitivity, but the Force was said to run through all living things, and Anakin being as strong in the Force as Qui-Gon had indicated, maybe he made his presence felt. The knots in her stomach made it hard to worry about any other feeling. “We'll go up, then.”

Leia hurried ahead to the elevator and started punching buttons as Padme jogged to catch up. Lights flashed to indicate that the second elevator from the right was moving down. More troopers, then, since Leia hadn't finished her tapping. Padme took a deep breath and let her hand settle on her blaster. Even if Shmi – or Padme herself – could pull off another quick diversion, she wasn't taking risks with the twins near her.

“Come back here, Leia.” Shmi shooed Luke behind her – he did as indicated without a sound – and raised her eyebrows at Leia, who sighed but joined her brother.

Something clunked behind the wall. Two stormtroopers appeared as the door of the moving elevator slid back. One of them already had a blaster in hand, so Padme lifted hers and fired.

One blast hit its target, but the other went wide. The standing stormtrooper glanced down at their stricken companion, then stepped out of the elevator, hand going for a weapon.

Two quick blasts from Padme's left stopped the stormtrooper dead. As the armour-clad corpse clattered to the floor, Padme turned to see Leia with a raised blaster of the same model that the troopers used. Shmi had folded her arms and was looking at Leia with deep concern.

“Blasters are dangerous, Leia. Be very careful where you point it.” After that incident, Padme wasn't willing to tell Leia to put the weapon aside.

“Of course.” Leia let the weapon fall so it pointed at the floor and nodded. “Do we drag the trooper out of the elevator, or -”

Another elevator's doors hissed open. Padme shook her head. “We'll take this one. We can move quicker that way.”

Shmi nodded and hustled the children inside. Padme joined them, looking down the corridor to check that no one was following them before stepping backwards into the cylindrical elevator. Luke and Leia huddled together between the opposing doors of the elevator, fumbling for each other's hands.

“I feel we're getting closer,” Shmi murmured, watching the level display above the twins' heads clock through numbers.

Padme nodded, forcing her shoulders back. It was getting harder to breathe, though nothing had changed in the air as they moved around the bowels of the battle station. “I hope so.”

The elevator door opposite the one they'd entered through opened a couple of levels up. Shmi took the lead this time. Padme's grip on her blaster had put the beginnings of cramp in her fingers; once she was confident that there was no one else in this corridor, she forced her fingers away from the handle. Luke and Leia stayed just behind Shmi. Perhaps the stormtroopers they'd encountered had brought the point about the dangers home to the children.

But that was no use now. For all that they hadn't moved that fast and Padme was in good condition, air didn't seem to stay in her lungs long enough to pull anything from it. Was Anakin nearby? The twins had to stop and gulp in air every so often as they moved in the direction that Shmi thought best. Luck or the will of the Force, either would do.

The wall of the corridor fell away to reveal thick transparisteel windows at one point. Shmi hesitated as she caught sight of them. The twins staggered into her. Padme broke into a jog for a few steps to catch up. “Is there something?”

Shmi shrugged, shaking the children off and stepping forward to the window. Padme took a deep breath to steady herself. Her thudding pulse wasn't loud enough to drown out Shmi's faint gasp.

Leia stood on tiptoe to see over the edge of the window. Her gasp was much louder than Shmi's. As she tugged on Luke's sleeve, she turned to Padme and whispered, “Obi-Wan's down there!”

“What?” Padme joined them at the window. Shmi, standing next to her, had frozen.

The window looked out over a long bridge passing over a deep chasm in the station's architecture, a connecting point between separate sections, Padme guessed. Two figures, doll-like from this height and distance, stood on the bridge, one wielding a blue lightsaber and the other a red one. A figure in black and a figure in brown, duelling in slow and measured strokes.

With Anakin trapped in that cybernetic armour and Obi-Wan ageing, thin and out of practice, what else could either of them manage.

“Are you okay, Mother?”

Padme started, turning to look down at Luke. Her ribs were ready to cave in. “I have to hurry.” She turned to Shmi, whose face was still blank with shock. “There'll be a set of elevators near each end of that bridge. We need to find one of them. I'll go down first and you can keep the children back until the situation's de-escalated.” Even if she had faith in their combined leverage on Anakin to bring him around, she wasn't going to put the children near an armed Sith Lord.

And if Obi-Wan had sought Anakin out... had he planned this?

Silence didn't matter now. Her boots thumped against the floor as she hurried back along the corridor, turning left towards the bridge. With master and apprentice duelling out there, she didn't have much time to spare.

 

The rails and bars along the bridge gave them no room. There was no choice but to face each other.

The chasm below him roared with the fury of a storm created by the suffocating interplay of two stars, two roiling masses of heat. Kenobi hadn't spoken as they drew closer on the bridge. He'd lost weight since Mustafar. By his weathered skin, he'd gone somewhere hot and dry. So the weight had been melted off him, just to further mock the pain that this master had caused.

Burnt and crackling skin pushed against cold cybernetics as he moved, swung, stepped forward, parried the flashing purple blade. The air that pushed through the mask joined the raging storm around him.

“You're much less agile than you used to be, Darth.”

Fire burst from the core of wires in his chest like lava pouring out through the forged pieces of him. “You are no longer a master Jedi yourself.”

That was the voice of another master, the only master who had given him the stone he needed to build his tower. But the sandstorm could bring down the marble tower. Kenobi stepped back, jaw clenching. “You were never fit to be one. Who are you to speak?”

How often had he heard that anger? Kenobi had been cold for so long. One of many ice barriers standing in his path to the power that he only needed to learn to use. The Force sang in his bones, always had done, but the music had been quashed by ice and sandstorms, and now there was only throbbing lightning. No one else. Kenobi was the only one he could make pay for that.

The purple blade moved past his red lightsaber, seeking the ticking heart that sat so bare over his ribs. No protection but a small black box. He twisted his arm. If he could take from his old master what his old master had taken from him –

“Anakin!”

The whining sandstorm collapsed into the chasm. He reeled back. The purple blade retreated as Kenobi turned, then was shoved aside by a figure in dark purple who slowed down as he stiffened, metal joints locking.

“That name...” A name. One he remembered. “... no longer... has any meaning for me.”

“Don't say that, Anakin.” She came closer, one step, two steps. _If she comes closer..._ But she was already close enough to put a hand on his arm. The ghost of touch made him shiver inside the anonymity of his armour. A name.

His name.

“Padme.” When had he fallen asleep?

The sandstorm had crushed the droids who saved his life when he'd heard that the breath he'd taken from her had been her last. But in his dreams she wasn't the woman he'd killed – no, she was Queen. An angel.

“Yes. It's me.”

Her eyes were darker, sadder. Ten years. “You're alive?”

She nodded, smiling. A desperate smile – despairing smile – the smile of someone collapsing in relief.

Burning heat softened. His chest would cave in soon.

“Padme, this is -”

“Hush, Obi-Wan.” She didn't look away from him. She took a deep breath as he fumbled for words. _He lied._ The smile slipped away into...

He no longer knew what. But it was sincere. Honest. The way Sidious hadn't been. Ten years living on a lie. She took a deep breath. “I want you back.”

Faint hisses of airborne sand spun inside the helmet. Behind the stationary Kenobi, figures were moving. He lifted his head.

“Father!” Two children. One blond, one dark-haired. One in pale clothes that wouldn't have been out of place on Tatooine. A home he'd learnt to hate, but oh, how much simpler that place had been. The other in a white dress. Simpler than Padme used to dress, but the style was familiar.

If Padme had lived... so had the child. The children?

Padme nodded, as if she could see through the mask. Through to him. “They're our children, Anakin.”

Though she rested it on his arm, her hand held him trapped. Another moving figure. Older, hair turning grey. A soft expression. What did it feel like to be soft?

Metallic nerves shivered. Who else could return to haunt him?

There was no body in the Tusken Raider tent, just blood. He'd sworn that she still lived. It had been a wilful fantasy, a hope without life. And yet...

“Mother.” The word caught in the mask's speakers. It was a word he didn't need.

“Ani.”

All four faced him on the bridge. His mother, his wife, his children. The family of Anakin Skywalker.

But he wasn't Anakin Skywalker. Couldn't be. Skywalker had been a hero. Now he was a shadow to fear. Every officer gulped as he walked into the room, breathed a little harder. Nameless, faceless troopers patrolled the Empire in an inversion of his image. “Why?”

There was more to that question, but that was all he could voice.

“The Emperor lied to you, Ani.” Now Padme used the nickname too. He hadn't always been this much taller than her. Cybernetic protests against the swelling of warmth in his chest fell away as soon as they rose. “There's still good in you.”

“Come home, Father.” It was the girl who spoke this time. The image of her mother. The boy stepped forward, took his hand. He'd looked like that once.

He shook his head. “I cannot abandon... my master.”

His armour was as much of a master as Sidious, as the man who held the power to make him kneel in his hand. Padme looked down, bit her lip, looked up. “I don't believe that, Ani. You're stronger than he is. That's why he wanted you in the first place.”

New figures moved in the distance, on the ends of the bridge. “You don't know... his power.”

“No. I know yours.”

Shmi stepped forward. He could have reached out, touched her. Despite the hand on his arm, Padme would let him. She'd let him move by himself.

The thought made him stall, made him insensate to the white-clad figures running up the bridge.

“Nobody move!”

Stormtroopers filled the bridge. Three in front of him – that was enough to block the bridge.

Padme turned her head, hand slipping away from him. He turned around. More troopers behind him, including a troop commander.

“We'll take the intruders to the governor.” The commander saluted as he turned around. “Would you like to accompany us, Lord Vader?”

He turned again, looked at the gathered company. Padme had drawn herself up. Luke retreated back to the safety of his family. Kenobi had gone cold.

“I will deal with the governor.” He surprised himself with his own speech, deliberate though the words were. The sound was wrong, though he'd had this voice for ten years. “You will provide an escort, but leave the talking to me.”

The trooper nodded and saluted. “Sir.”

As the troopers tried to form up – difficult on this narrow bridge – he turned to look at his family. Padme caught his gaze and forced a smile.

“It's up to you now, Ani. There's not much I can do about this many troopers.”

He held her gaze for a moment, though she couldn't have seen his eyes through the mask. Then he glanced at the children – his children. And his mother, who looked on with peaceful stoicism.

He turned and strode away along the bridge. The stormtrooper escort followed behind him, their clatter and clumping loud enough to let him ignore the chirps of strained cybernetics and the soft whisper of a long-forgotten lake zephyr that followed him from the grave of the sandstorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Millennium Falcon does manage to leave the battle station (which I am scrupulously not calling the Death Star for no reason but my own fic-writing conceit) eventually. We'll see who's on board.


	6. A Cage of Live Wires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author self-indulgently commits heinous acts of violence through fictional proxy and once again takes on a difficult point of view, at risk of getting it badly wrong once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter six, we're halfway there! Yay!  
> I got stuck three paragraphs into this one because I had not, in fact, planned for how they'd get off the Death Star without raising suspicion. So I introduced a plothole-by-omission instead, because I had more important things to do with the story.

Padme kept herself between Anakin and Obi-Wan as the stormtroopers guided them around the station. Obi-Wan hadn't said a word since his half-hearted attempt at dissuading Padme from speaking to Anakin, and Anakin... well.

He'd reacted, and not with immediate hostility. But shock could paralyse the decision-making process, and his response to the stormtroopers' appearance suggested continued compliance to the dictates of the Empire. But the way he'd spoken of the Emperor's power, as if the words had be torn from his lungs by that mask he spoke through...

Curious. As curious as the steady serenity that had come over Shmi as they'd been herded along the greyscape. Shmi had more tricks up her sleeve than Padme had assumed, and while she couldn't help but curse herself for letting assumptions about life as a slave on Tatooine get in the way of her observations, any trick that 'the governor' didn't know about was good. The twins stayed between Padme and Shmi, shielded from the troopers and quieter than mouse droids. She had to keep the crumbling in her chest in check. Yes, it was natural to be fearful, given that her children were under threat as much as she was, but falling apart wouldn't get them to safety.

Right now, safety was in Anakin's hands, and he was yet to break out of Imperial routine. If he gave them any opportunity, any chance at all, she had to be ready to move.

But on they went through the maze, bewildering through its size rather than its complexity. After a while, she began to notice the numbers marked on several corners, a combination of letters and numbers in a regular format. Regular enough that the station might have had a standardised system for the labelling of its corridors. That would have been a lot more useful had she known where in this alphabet the hangar that held their escape ship was located.

She glanced back at Obi-Wan, whose head hung down so she couldn't make out the expression on his face. Had seeking Anakin out and initiating a fight been his plan since his change of heart about finding Anakin?

Had he deactivated the tractor beam prior to finding Anakin? Perhaps the more urgent question. Hard to tell.

Anakin – it took effort to use that name for the looming cybernetic shadow – stopped in front of a pair of double doors. Padme shook herself and straightened up. _This must be our destination._ One of the children – Luke, a quick glance down ascertained – grabbed Padme's hand. The door slid open with a hiss that drew Padme's attention back to the regular wheezing of Anakin's forced breathing. That suit couldn't be good medical practice. From what Obi-Wan had been willing to tell her, Anakin would have been left in a pitiful state on Mustafar, but some of the doctors who'd tried to get him back on his feet must have had an inordinate fondness for cybernetics.

Conference room, by the look of things; big round table – with ridiculous chairs, having people be uncomfortable served little purpose when you wanted them compliant – at which sat two people. Wilhuff Tarkin, whom Padme remembered seeing every once in a while during the Clone Wars, and a stranger who looked human apart from the green scales over the right eye.

Would Tarkin recognise her? She hoped not.

“Governor.” Anakin stayed just in front of the group of 'intruders' as the stormtroopers dispersed, backing out of the room at a pace just short of impolite scurrying.

Tarkin glanced up, then rose from his seat, drawing the gaze of the other man at the table, whose right eye was large and plain black. A Rodian eye. Something twisted in Padme's stomach.

“So these are the intruders.” Tarkin pushed his chair away and strolled around the table, casting a dry gaze over the company before focusing on Vader. Didn't even look twice at Padme, thank the Force. “Did you see any particular reason to seek them out yourself?”

Anakin didn't reply for a moment. Behind that mask it was impossible to make out any glimmer of expression that would give some indication to his thoughts. “The unusual Force presence drew my attention.”

Just an unusual one, not a strong one. Tarkin nodded. “I see. They should be interrogated as to the reason for their presence here.”

“Why does that man have a Rodian eye?” Luke blurted, clinging to Padme's hand like it was a water pipe on Tatooine.

Amid stifled gasps from behind Padme, the man in question rose to his feet, mismatched eyes fixing on what little he could see of Luke behind Padme. “It's better in dim light or damp conditions. Our only visual advantage as humans is our ability to see many colours. I see no reason to constrain myself to that.”

This man was not to be trusted. Tarkin looked down at Luke – well, down at Padme, since he was the wrong side to see even the sliver of the boy that the man with the Rodian eye could see – and muttered, “That is Cylo, a doctor of some accomplishment.” The governor's gaze flickered back towards Anakin for a moment, before drifting around to the doctor. “I don't think this will be of any interest to you.”

So this doctor had a hand in the armour that Anakin had been encased in like some primitive artefact. It was a quick conclusion and Padme was well aware she had nothing to support the case, but that flickering glance was out of character for Tarkin, and if any doctor would come up with the idea for a life-sustaining anonymous suit of armour less human in the face than many droids, it would be the one with a Rodian eye and the conceit of transhumanity foremost in his mind. Did Anakin remember this doctor? She glanced up at him, at the dark mask that held Anakin away from her.

 

Cylo could make him kneel. For all that he held the Force in black-gloved hands, boiling with brash rage and ready to rip the Rodian-eyed doctor apart... there was nothing he could do if... when Cylo decided that he needed to be taught a lesson.

Gardulla, Watto, Obi-Wan, Sidious, Cylo. An endless parade of people who held one end of the chains in their hands. The chains had come alive this time.

Live chains were electric wires, power couplings, a necessary threat. Useful but deadly.

Padme's hand hadn't even been an attempt to restrain him. Just to touch him, find him underneath the armour.

“They will not be interrogated.”

The mask held the words back. He wasn't supposed to say that. Tarkin stepped back and frowned, rheumy eyes flickering from him to his family, back, forth, back, forth, darkening all the while. He shook his head. “Lord Vader, do I need to remind you -”

“The children are strong in the Force. They may be useful to the Emperor.”

The soft lake zephyr spun around his head, just outside the mask. Padme was worried. Tarkin scoffed. “Once this station is completed, the Force will be nothing. This will be the ultimate power in the galaxy.”

“The Force is a relic of days long gone, Vader.” Cylo directed a thin-lipped smile at him. “Other things will take its place. Things like you, perhaps.”

 _Things._ Tools without names, imitations of humanity. Numbered humanoids like droids, like the clones he'd commanded during the Clone Wars. Back when he'd still had a name. _Things like you._ No. That was not the way to speak.

Anakin hissed inside his mask and reached a hand out from beneath his cloak.

“Lord Vader!”

Tarkin's yap didn't distract him. Cylo's eyes, black and yellow alike, began to close as he collapsed, his attempts at breaths sounding like abandoned retches.

“Lord Vader, this is no way to treat -”

A single blaster shot cut the governor's words off. Vader turned his head. Padme lowered her blaster – the same small silver one she'd carried when he first met her – gaze turned down. “It might not have been a lethal shot, but I doubt he's going to be any use.”

He nodded. Words formed in the back of his mouth, but the sudden clicks in the joints of his armour halted his mechanic speech.

Red flashes blanked out the grey room as cybernetic limbs bowed. The sandstorm howled in his skull, but there was nothing he could do. No response to Padme's gasps.

The dark cage closed again as his neck bowed, looking down at Tarkin, fallen with one hand covering the hole in his stomach.

 

Padme had to fight back a retch as she looked at Cylo, who clawed himself upright with rough hacking coughs. Whatever that black device he held in his hand was... she wanted it away from him.

Luke and Leia huddled close behind her. Cylo forced a smile as he straightened up. The expression looked distorted, with the Rodian eye not creasing as his left eye did. “Curious that he should care so much for you. The children must be born into the Empire, but the rest of you...”

“That's enough.”

Padme flinched at Shmi's steel voice as she strode forward, towards the doctor, whose smile slipped little by little into wary bemusement.

“What is she doing?” Obi-Wan murmured.

“You hush!” Leia cut in before Padme could reply. “You were going to kill Father.”

Could Anakin, forced into a kneeling bow by whatever Cylo had done, still hear them? With that helmet, even sound would be filtered through the cybernetics. Padme reached a hand back to Leia. “Calm now, please.”

“What are you talking about, woman?” Cylo shook his head, lifting the hand with the small black device. “Vader is an excellent tool for the Emperor, I'll grant that, but he has...”

“That's not his name.” Shmi's voice had fallen into a canyon of soft fury. Padme forced herself to breathe and held a hand out to catch Luke, who seemed about to step forward. He clung to her hand instead. “What gave you the right to take away anyone else's control of their own body like that?”

Of course. Shmi had lived with a slave transmitter too. Padme still hadn't grasped the full implications of that, clearly. Seeing Anakin forced to kneel could only have brought back bad memories.

Had the Emperor thought about the slave transmitters, the effect of living with one of them?

Obi-Wan took a step forward to stand to the side of Leia, arms folded. He'd gone back to blankness, though there was something stiff in the way he carried himself. Whatever it was that had disturbed him to the point of trying to kill Anakin – assuming he had tried, but Padme couldn't think what else that last stroke of his before she'd broken up the fight might have been for – wasn't gone.

But that would have to be a later worry. Cylo and Shmi still faced each other. Neither of them would give ground without significant pressure. And Padme wasn't sure what she could do but shoot the man. From here, the blast would have to go through Shmi, and any movement could result in the doctor turning on her – or the children. So it was up to Shmi.

“There's more machine in him than there is man.” Cylo chuckled, coughed, chuckled some more as Shmi folded her arms. “How many humans have you met who can be turned on and off like a ship's autopilot?”

Padme winced. Now she'd remembered the slave transmitters, the foolishness of that comment didn't go unnoticed. The twins shuddered. Obi-Wan frowned. So he was still present, at least to some extent. It'd have to do.

Shmi's head bowed. From here Padme couldn't see her face or make a guess at her mental state. She sucked in a deep breath and forced down the temptation to speak.

A clenched fist hit the side of Cylo's head with a clap that made the twins flinch. The small black object fell out of the doctor's hand and skittered across the floor. Luke let go of Padme's hand and ran across to grab it before Padme could say a word.

Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose as Padme glanced at him. “I'm impressed, Shmi.”

Shmi had taken full advantage of Cylo's momentary disorientation and forced him to the floor. At Obi-Wan's dry comment, she looked up and sighed. “Tatooine is a rough place. Perhaps you'd like to help? I doubt I could hold him for long.”

Luke tugged at Padme's hand and held the black device out to her. She nodded, tongue-tied, as she took it. Several buttons, marked with shorthand notes. In Basic Aurebesh, thank the Force. One button had a subtle red backlight. She glanced at Anakin, hesitant for a moment – she didn't know what this device did, after all – then put a finger on the glowing button.

Cybernetics clicked and Anakin shuddered, before shifting his weight back and rising to his feet. Whoever had designed that suit had made it much taller than Anakin had been. After a moment's hesitation in which his wheezing breath filled the room, he stuttered, “... Thank you.”

Padme took a step closer, bringing herself into his shadow, and held out the remote control to him. “Here. You should take it.”

He looked down at her for a long enough moment that she found her pulse against her ribs, then reached out a hand to take the black device in black gloves. “The doctor... what will you do with him?”

Padme glanced over her shoulder. Cylo was pinned, Shmi and Obi-Wan both holding him down, with the children hovering just out of reach. Good. “We'll see.”

“There's nothing you can do.” Cylo sounded far too smug for a man pinned to the ground. “Even if you mutilate this body beyond recognition, I will come back.”

“An immortal system, you mean?” Padme forced herself not to scoff. Something about Cylo made the idea sound less absurd than it ever had before.

“That new body must first find out that your old one is dead.” Anakin stepped around Padme and lowered himself to the ground, next to Obi-Wan, who turned his head away. A brush of a black-gloved hand revealed a golden plate device encircling Cylo's head.

“The Force will not help you, Vader.” Cylo's face had settled into grim complacency. He thought himself invulnerable.

Anakin didn't move. Padme glanced to Shmi, who'd looked up.

“No. It will not.” Then Vader bent forward, cutting off the line of sight between the women. “But you are not the only one who can use machines, doctor.”

Padme covered her smile with one hand. The boy who'd built his own podracer would know how to handle the cybernetics. Anakin's hands slipped around the doctor's head. A couple of clicks and a bony scrape that made Padme wince, and then the cybernetic device came free and slid off the doctor's head.

Anakin turned it over in his hands. The mask held any emotion back, but Padme could imagine the expression – the sly smile of young decisiveness and just a hint of brashness – that Anakin would have had in years gone by. “A simple device. The destruction of the transmitter will render the system useless.”

“You're remarkably confident in your conclusions and you've barely looked at the wiring.” Cylo forced a grin. It slipped away as Anakin reached a hand forward. Then the skin on the doctor's neck began to pinch together.

Padme gulped, one hand rising to her own neck. That was an act of the Dark Side, or at least so Obi-Wan had said – not that he had much cause to lie, but after the failure of the Jedi to provide Anakin with the guidance he needed, Padme had a number of questions about their methods. Shmi caught her eye over the glossy black helmet and shrugged. Padme nodded, took a deep breath and let her hand fall. After what Cylo had done to Anakin... right now, she'd forgive the action born of the Dark Side of the Force.

Obi-Wan started away as the doctor's body went limp. “We should find the captain and leave as soon as possible.” His gaze darted to and fro as if he expected to be caught at the scene of a murder. Well, it was a murder. Technically. Padme found it hard to think of it as one, for some reason.

“We should. And will.” She held a hand out to help Anakin up. “We have a ship with us, and a pilot, in whatever hangar the station's tractor beam will guide it to.” The door was still shut. “I'm a little concerned about whether we'll be able to get there without incident, though. I'd rather not have Leia try shooting anyone else.”

The blaster clunked to the floor and Leia folded her hands together, adding a pout. Luke looked sideways at his sister and sighed.

“Leave the stormtroopers to me.” Anakin turned his head – every movement was so slow and calculated, that wasn't Anakin at all – to look at Shmi. “Thank you.”

“I couldn't do anything else.” Shmi's chest still heaved with the air she took in. Confronting Cylo must have been more tense than it had looked from Padme's point of view.

“Onwards we go, then.” Padme turned towards the door. “Luke, Leia, stay close. We don't have time to go chasing you if you get lost.”

They'd have to set a course for Dantooine. That would scare a fair few people, but at least Dantooine was remote enough that any medical staff around would have time to get Anakin out of that suit. He couldn't stay in a suit with a built-in off switch. Once was enough.

 

“Is the grizzly guy okay?” Han asked as Padme stuck her head into the cockpit. “He's been grumbling since we left that moon of a space station.”

Padme sighed. “I'm not sure what he's struggling with, but he's not in a good way. I don't think there's much to do but wait for him to talk about it himself.”

The smuggler nodded. “We'll be on Dantooine before too long. The sooner the wheezy guy is off the Falcon, the happier I'll be.”

Padme forced herself not to sigh. Even though he'd chosen a spot in the ship and stayed out of the way, Anakin was still intimidating. That might have been the point of the armour. How long before the Emperor found out that he was missing? “We'll try to be quick.”

Obi-Wan could be a problem. Shmi and the twins had tried to speak to Anakin, but he'd seemed reluctant to interact with people – that armour didn't lend itself to human contact, either (had he felt her hand at all?) – and they'd all come to the same conclusion. Best leave him be and let him find himself among the lies and misdirection that the Emperor had leveraged to persuade the most powerful Jedi of the Republic's history to turn on the democracy.

She had to stop thinking of the Republic as 'the democracy'. It had been failing. Had it been more robust, its survival wouldn't have come down to a small group of alert but cautious politicians against a cunning Sith Lord. The Empire was worse, but the Republic would have needed reform as soon as the war ended.

Luke and Leia sat either side of Shmi around the Dejarik table. Leia was scowling at the other two, so Shmi must have been helping Luke. Obi-Wan sat cross-legged in one corner, eyes shut. “We've nearly arrived.” Padme forced her shoulders back. This was no time to worry about what the Rebel Alliance members at the base would think. “Although I imagine there's not much preparation to be done.”

Shmi smiled as one of Luke's creatures moved across the board. “How long did you plan to stay on Dantooine?”

Padme shrugged. “We'll see what the medical staff can do about Anakin's armour.”

“You don't think the injured take greater priority?”

Padme sighed at Obi-Wan's comment. “I said we'll see what they can do. That might not be much, if there are people injured so badly as to need ongoing medical care. But until we reach the base, we won't find out.”

“You might want to talk to Anakin,” Shmi suggested, gaze falling to the table, though she didn't seem to be looking at the game. “Warn him.”

Padme nodded. “I will.”

 

Anakin nodded as Padme finished her explanation. “I see.”

That voice was not his. Padme's words froze on her tongue, so to hear Han call, “Docked and ready to disembark!” into the main hold was a relief.

It was hard to see the change in Anakin's stature, but he seemed to stiffen. “Obi-Wan. Is he still...”

Padme shrugged and sighed. “I don't know what he's doing. I can only hope he'll talk about it at some point, but until then it won't do much good to press.”

Anakin nodded again. _What I wouldn't give to see you smile again, my dear._ “Shall we go?”

Padme nodded and stepped back to allow him space to move forward.

The twins seemed unsatisfied with the result of their game and were squabbling about it in a rather tame fashion with Shmi watching them, arms folded but smile gentle. She turned as Anakin and Padme joined her at the bottom of the boarding ramp. “This looks to be a pleasant planet.”

“It is. Remote, though, so it's not been as heavily colonised as might have been expected.” A thin sliver of the base made itself seen above the tree line, but no movement could be seen in the trees. This was a well-designed location, although how long it would last Padme couldn't say. They hadn't been expecting the Empire to turn up on Rattatak either.

Rustling in the bushes made the twins grab each other's hands. A young Togruta came running, although she slowed as she saw Anakin. It took effort for her to wrench her gaze away and focus on Padme. “You turned up earlier than expected.”

“We had an errand to run.”

“Yes, ma'am.” The Togruta glanced at the other guests. “Um... if you don't mind...”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi and Shmi Skywalker. My children, Luke and Leia. And... ah... I'm sure you recognise him, but this is Anakin Skywalker.”

The Togruta flinched back and glanced at Anakin, who hadn't moved. “The Emperor put the greatest Jedi who ever lived in a black suit of armour just to terrorise the galaxy?”

Best not give Anakin any time to let his temper get the better of him. “That armour needs to be removed, but that may take a lot of work by the medical team.”

“I'm sorry?”

Padme sighed. “The armour is designed to be a control measure. He's likely to need other cybernetics, but this particular version is the Emperor's work, and that's not acceptable.”

“I... think I understand.” The Togruta's shy glance up at Anakin belied her words, but there was no sense in complaining about that now. No one would be happy about having Darth Vader at the base, and explaining the situation that Anakin had ended up in to everyone would take too long. Even assuming that she could do so before Obi-Wan got in with his 'Anakin is dead and Vader is all that's left'. “I'll run ahead and tell the medical team to be ready. We've sorted most of the acute injuries, so there'll be a few doctors available.”

Padme nodded, looking up to Anakin as the Togruta ran off through the trees. “The doctors here will be kinder than Cylo was. I promise.”

Anakin didn't move. He held the remote control she'd handed him in a tight grip.

Shmi stepped around Padme to put a hand on Anakin's arm. “Things will get better, Ani. Come on. You're among friends now.”

Anakin seemed to start out of a daze, nodded, and started walking. The cape fluttered around his ankles. Palpatine really wanted to make a show out of the apprentice he'd lied to.

Padme gestured to the twins to follow her and set off after Shmi and Anakin. Obi-Wan could follow at his own pace. _Small cracks can split even duracrete if there's enough of them._ And bringing Anakin Skywalker back home would be a big crack in the Emperor's plans.

She just had to make sure that she didn't lose him again in the stress of reacclimatising to a life out of Palpatine's clutches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The team's going to be stuck on Dantooine for a while yet, although questions could certainly be asked as to why precisely the Millennium Falcon refuses to get off the ground.


	7. Lonely Bricks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the moment, matters are calm. As long as no one looks too close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who's chosen to inflict my Tumblr on themselves may know that I had major difficulties writing this chapter. First I couldn't figure out what the hell to do with the Vader suit, which is an absurd amount of medical horror even at my baby biology level, and then there was the whole thing with Anakin and Padme, which I did not know how to write because I am aroace as all hell and have about as much understanding of romance as I do of deep sea flora. Not that writing the beginnings of reconciliation (if what ended up being written can even be called a beginning) between Padme and the far end of the human disaster scale, as I referred to him while complaining about the writing difficulties, was ever going to be easy...  
> So yeah. If something seems wrong, it's either my bad medical knowledge or my aroaceness.

It couldn't be the sky that roused him.

The view misted over as he blinked, tried to focus on the colour above him. No colour, just clean starched white. Searing blue against eyes that hadn't seen the world without the faint tinge of spilled blood coating everything for...

Ten years. Had he been locked behind that mask for so long?

“Father?”

Anakin's breath caught in his teeth as he rolled his head on the pillow. Blink, blink, blink, what was he missing? A blond mop of hair wavered into focus as he narrowed his eyes –

No respirator. He could hold his breath. How long since...

“Father? You're awake!” The insistent voice of a child... his child.

“My son.”

A soft whisper, the zephyr that had spun around the lake on Naboo. He lifted his head. It felt light. Air curled into his chest in small gulps. The room seemed quiet. The boy brushed his hair out of his eyes. A hand wrapped around his. He turned his head.

“Ani.” His mother sat by the side of the bed, one arm around the boy's shoulders. “How are you?”

The desert had swallowed his rage, but home rested in the heart, and he'd carried it with him. Where could that fury go now? The gentle whisper that had replaced the sandstorm couldn't do away with...

No. He forced the thought aside. “The armour...”

“All gone,” the boy announced.

He blinked, then tried to smile. Tight skin stung across his cheeks and he winced.

“There's... there's a lot of scar tissue.” Shmi sighed and looked down, a finger moving over his hand, contained motion in restraint of something wilder. “And the doctors can't replace your limbs, so they'll be cybernetic, but... they'll be more comfortable.”

Anakin nodded, forced himself to relax into the bed – soft like warm beach sand. He'd never thought he'd miss sand. The air around him was lighter than the armour, and yet much more alive. The Force reached straight from his mother and son into him. His body floated on the bed – he could feel the soft linen below him, but for all that he sought a sense of his shape, there were only whispers along nerves that had been dulled by a steady stream of chemicals.

The brightness of a world with blue in it made his eyes water, and warmth swelled in a chest rising and falling with true life again at the thought.

“Where's Padme?”

“Running around outside shouting at people.”

“That's a little simplistic, Luke.” Shmi smiled at the boy. “The Alliance had to move base not that long ago, and this is the first time one of its commanders has been able to check up on progress here, I believe. Leia's with her. She seems to take after you in her passion.”

Smiling hurt, but at least he could. The mask had pinned his expression in place, and the relief in his meditation chambers had been all too brief. The fourth slave master's one concession to his possessions.

Mustafar... the sandstorm had to stay still. “She survived. Just like you.”

Shmi nodded. Her gaze stayed down as she spoke. “Obi-Wan ordered the ship they arrived in to stay in hyperspace as long as possible around Polis Massa. He sensed something untoward around the ship and decided it was best not to allow the Emperor a chance to find her Force presence.”

Obi-Wan. The sandstorm rose to a whine in his ears and he sighed, forced his eyes shut for a moment. Cool darkness letting him find the peace that had been so elusive. But the storm carried on, a little further away now, but ready to roar back into his head.

“Do you want to see her?” Luke asked, leaning forward, close enough that his golden hair formed a thin screen in Anakin's vision as he let his eyelids flutter open. Such a tiny, skipping motion, like a jumping bug, but it sent thrills through nerves so long dead to the world, to the Force, to life. “I should be able to find her...”

The stinging smile again. “Please.”

Luke nodded, breaking into a bright grin, and slid down from his stool. As he pattered out through the door, Shmi glanced after him and chuckled. “He's got your smile. You looked much the same at that age.”

Ten years old. The Jedi had taken him by then. _The Council doesn't trust you, Anakin._ The keening whine broke like waves into feeble eardrums and he winced.

But the Jedi were gone. This was... a different world. And Sidious...

Sidious had lied. What was the galaxy now? Padme had to have the answers. Always so wise. She'd always known better.

The soft circles of his mother's thumb on the imitation skin covering one arm were all that kept him still.

 

“That is _enough_ , young lady!”

The sight of Leia's pout made holding a calm expression much harder. Padme picked the stubborn young girl up and hefted her onto her hip, where Leia clung on for dear life and started grumbling.

“Everything's so messy. They're all sharing tools and then they can't find them!”

 _Well, she thinks she's being helpful._ “Having a different set of tools for every ship and droid would be inconvenient, and one hydrospanner is much the same as another.” Padme patted Leia on the head and did her best not to laugh. “Pilots can be funny about their ships, but they know what they're doing.”

Leia shrugged without letting go of Padme.

“Mother! Mother!”

“What?” She turned as Luke skidded to a stop in front of her, flushed but grinning.

“Father's awake. He wants to see you.”

Padme's heart stopped for a moment. The doctors had told her that getting the armour off would only be the beginning of the journey for Anakin. So much of his body broken to fit into that cybernetic cage... and sooner or later he had to realise how little was left of him. For all that Cylo had been able to make him kneel with the press of a button... the armour was all that had been sustaining him.

And Padme wasn't sure she was ready for the sight of him cut short by Obi-Wan's desperate slice with his lightsaber before taking Anakin's away from the lava bank.

Perhaps that would be her taste of Obi-Wan's pain.

She set Leia down on the floor and nodded to Luke. “Is Shmi still with him?”

Luke nodded and brushed a strand of hair away from his eyes. “Father's a little... I think he's confused. He stared at the ceiling a lot.”

Like his eyes were brand new. Padme nodded. “I'll be there in a moment. Leia...” If Luke had already spoken to his father, it seemed wrong to deny Leia the opportunity, even if she did have her reservations about the state that Anakin was likely to be in. But Leia shook her head.

“You go first.”

Padme nodded and put a hand on Leia's shoulder. “You two stay out of the way and be careful around the ships. No one's due to fly out, but the pilots may want to test their ships.”

“What about Mr Solo? Didn't he want to leave?” Luke asked.

Padme shrugged and forced herself to stay as blank as possible. “He did, but there seemed to be a bit of, ah... difficulty with the hyperdrive. The captain and Chewbacca don't seem to have repaired it yet.” Something about Chewbacca's expression – or at least what Padme had been able to see of it underneath the fur – had made her wonder whether the inability of the Falcon to get off the ground was as inexplicable as Han had believed. “He'll need clearance to get off the planet, so we'll know when he does leave.”

The twins nodded, then grabbed for each other's hands and scurried off. They weren't likely to get hurt. If nothing else, the pilots would know to take care of them and move them somewhere safe if there was a problem.

Slow breaths to a count of four in and out. They'd taken Vader away from the Emperor. Now they just had to tease Anakin Skywalker out from the shadows.

Clanking metal and occasional calls in multiple languages and dialects rang through the cavernous hangar as Padme hurried along the yellow-lined walkways. Everything seemed to be in order; the Alliance could move again once it had a target. That battle station... much bigger than she'd expected, and if its size correlated to its power, that'd be something to fear once it was finished... and the Force only knew how they'd get a foot in the blaster door to prevent its completion.

A medical droid looked up at the medbay entrance. “Good afternoon. You are here to see Anakin Skywalker?”

Padme nodded at the droid. “How's he doing?”

“All vital signs are present. He is stable, but will require many follow-up surgeries to mitigate the effects of the suit and his injuries.” The droid delivered the information in a dispassionate voice that made Padme shudder. “It appears that in the process of adapting the suit to his body, many organs were compromised or removed. It will be perhaps a week before all replacements can be constructed, and reconstruction will require a full standard day in a bacta tank.”

“Reconstruction?” She could feel the skin over her cheeks turning chalk white. Just what had Cylo done?

The droid nodded. “He will need to remain on life support for now. Rehabilitation is likely to be slow.”

She forced herself to nod. Perhaps it was better not to ask any more about the details. She was about to walk in and see him, after all. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

One last controlled breath before the door slid open and she stepped into the room. Shmi glanced up and smiled. She had one hand around Anakin's prosthetic. Anakin himself turned his head as the door hissed shut again, blue eyes clear between a crumpled mess of raw burn scars.

Padme forced herself to smile at him as she took the seat next to Shmi. “How are you, Ani?”

“Better.”

The word was a faint whisper that Padme strained to catch. She nodded. Most of his body was covered by a medbay gown, but the scars ran down onto his neck. In patches the scars were smoother, in others the skin peeled away. “That's good.” It was difficult to think of anything else to say.

This man was a faded reflection of the man who'd choked her to unconsciousness on Mustafar. She refused to let her hand rise to her neck despite the prickling in her skin. Anakin was nothing to be afraid of, now. In this state, little more than an object of pity.

That could be a dangerous line of thought.

He spoke again, drawing her mind back into the medbay with its glowing white walls. “I... I never wanted to hurt you.”

Never planned on it, that she could understand. The Dark Side fed a reckless impulse, and that had been his downfall on Mustafar. But how far did intent stretch? “I know.” Would it help to blame him now, remind him of all his mistakes? Obi-Wan had proved that guilt spirals didn't help, and she remembered trying to console Anakin on Tatooine, after the slaughter of the Tusken Raiders. The first of many deaths.

She had to keep herself in the present. There'd be time to think while Anakin was still in the medbay. No thinking about his injuries, though. She'd only upset herself.

“I thought I'd killed you.”

Even though his voice was no louder than the hum of the monitoring equipment on the other side of the bed, its cracking made Padme start. Her gaze fell to Shmi's thumb moving over Anakin's hand – why had the medi-droids left it there? – as she gulped back the lump in her throat. She hadn't anticipated this much difficulty speaking to Anakin. Her husband, for the love of the Force. She'd managed to convince him to come with her, this time –

Best not to think of her failure last time, either. _Force, I need help._ “I made it.” She bit together for a moment, then blinked hard and carried on. “Obi-Wan sensed the Dark Side around the ship when we left and ordered an early jump to hyperspace to prevent tracking. He seemed to think that the Emperor could somehow attack me through the Force, even at a distance.”

Anakin's jaw clenched, making Padme start again. He turned his head away, eyes falling shut as if he wasn't in control of them, mouthing words that she couldn't make out.

“Anakin.” Shmi's voice didn't rise, but this woman had grown up in the deserts, and she knew how to be strong without being as harsh as her home had been. Padme had to admire that, as little as she understood it. “Obi-Wan has made mistakes too. The Emperor was more cunning than any of you knew how to handle.”

Still Anakin's nervous frets made the bed rustle, thin voice rising high enough that he made himself heard again. “He left me for dead...”

“And fell into drink to forget about it.” Shmi sighed, hand still around Anakin's. She was probably the best person to have this conversation. Padme had known Anakin a long time, but there were some things that Shmi could understand about him that Padme never would. So she stayed silent and let Shmi carry on speaking to her son. “The Emperor needed you to be isolated for his own purposes.”

“He lied... but the Republic...”

“I know, Ani.” Shmi sighed. “The Republic wasn't what it could have been, but the Emperor didn't want to make it better.”

To think what Shmi could have become had it not been for her circumstances on Tatooine. The thought sent a bitter taste into Padme's mouth. It would be a while before Anakin worked through the Emperor's lies – before he even could. And there was only so much Padme could do to help him through that process.

“He came with you... Obi-Wan...” He strained to get the words out, thin cracks appearing in the scar tissue as his face twisted. “He meant to kill me... and you...”

“He was one of those who knew you best.” How questionable did the decision to bring Obi-Wan look, to Anakin? She'd overlooked that. “I didn't expect him to try that. He came to Mustafar because you were his brother, and he loved you.”

“That means nothing now.” Hard as a steel wire, and just as fragile.

“He won't hurt you again, Ani.” Shmi leaned forward and flashed a soft smile that broke apart in the middle at Padme. “You're safe now, but you need time to recover. You should rest. The children will be back to see you soon.”

His head twitched forward. That would be as close as he could get to a nod. “I will.”

“Things will get better, Ani.” Padme had to say something, but the words felt stilted. She put a careful hand on his shoulder as Shmi stood up, then sighed, got to her feet and followed Shmi out of the door.

As it hissed shut behind her she slumped against the wall and let out a heavy exhalation that made her shake.

“Are you well?” Shmi asked in a whisper, as if Anakin could still hear them from inside his room.

Padme's first instinct was to nod, but she stopped herself just short of doing so. That would have been dishonest. So she shook her head, but the words were slower to come. “I'm not sure what comes next. There's so much that needs to be done. Anakin needs help, but with him and Obi-Wan still... harbouring such strong feelings... What was it about Obi-Wan falling into drink?”

Shmi shrugged and folded her arms together. “He's been carrying a flask around and tends to take a sip whenever he thinks no one's looking. I don't know that it's not an older bad habit of his, but it seems to be connected to his guilt somehow. He's been worse since we left the station.”

Padme had barely noticed. Perhaps there was something about slavery, about being expected to cater to someone's every whim with fatal consequences resting on those same whims, that made observation a necessary skill. Anakin had struggled to express himself when they'd met again after the first assassination attempt on Coruscant, but he'd always been alert to the fact that he'd misspoken or made the situation awkward. Perhaps she was overthinking it, though. “That won't help him.”

Shmi shrugged again. “I'm not sure there's anyone left whom he'd listen to if they told him to stop. The bad feelings seem to go both ways between them.”

“Feeling betrayed will do that.”

It would be betrayal. The deepest of cuts, in a way, because it never came from people you hated. “I'm not sure what to say to him. The things he did in the Emperor's name... even if they could be forgiven... if he earns forgiveness...”

“Maybe forgiveness isn't what he needs.”

Padme's open mouth couldn't call up an answer to that. She looked down and started counting out her breathing again. “Maybe not.” She didn't know what else to say to that. “It will be difficult to convince people that he's not a threat any longer. He wavered for a while on the space station... he may not know how to behave without the guidance of the Emperor for a while. Ten years is a long time, and the structure of the Jedi Order is gone. There were only a handful of survivors after... Order 66.” After Anakin had walked into the Jedi Temple at the head of a column of clones turned against their leaders. Obi-Wan's voice had cracked at the mention of the younglings that had died by the lightsaber that Luke had picked up in the house on Tatooine.

It wasn't the saber's fault. But lightsabers were tied to the Jedi who made them in a way that not even the most appreciated of blasters could be, and the sentimental value that Padme's old silver blaster held was enough to make her wonder whether the weapon and the Jedi who wielded it could be separated, or should be.

There was no need for her to be shaking, and yet...

“You need to rest as well.” Shmi reached out to touch Padme's arm. “You've done a lot over the last few days. The base will be safe for a while even without careful monitoring.”

Padme nodded, with an involuntary smile that Shmi returned with warmth as she started to move away from the door and out of the medbay. Shmi had an adaptability that would have made her an excellent diplomat. What else had the Republic lost for not taking care of the Outer Rim territories?

Not that slavery was an insult to every being in the galaxy because of the wasted talents. It was a harsh use of lives as well. But the talent was easier to think about.

Easy wouldn't get anyone far, but Padme didn't have the presence of mind to think too hard. Shmi was right. She needed to rest.

“Padme?”

“Oh, Obi-Wan. I was starting to wonder where you'd gone.” She forced her shoulders back as she turned to face him. He looked more drawn than ever.

“You've been to see Anakin, I assume.”

Padme nodded. “He'll need to stay in the medbay for a while, but he's stable.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “Lots of injuries and scarring, I take it.”

Now that was bitter. “Injuries that were badly taken care of. The suit must have done as much to aggravate those injuries as it did to ease the pain.” If easing the pain had ever been part of the plan. Maybe for the Emperor, who wanted his apprentice able to work – or so Padme had to assume, but she'd misjudged Palpatine before, and badly so – but Cylo?

The more she thought about the comments that the medi-droids and doctors had made in the process of dealing with the suit, the harder it became to think of his death as a murder. How long would it take Anakin to work his way out of resorting to that trick of the Dark Side under pressure?

Obi-Wan looked down. “I imagine it'll be a while before he's healthy.” He spat the words out like oil.

“Perhaps. What's done is done, Obi-Wan, and I'm sure the medical team are doing what they can to make sure the injuries don't cause any more pain than the bare minimum.” She couldn't scold him for immobilising a Sith Lord, and she couldn't scold him for not killing a man he'd thought of as his brother.

“Maybe not.” Obi-Wan turned to leave, then hesitated and lifted his head to glance over his shoulder at Padme and Shmi. “I'm sure you'll do what you can to make sure he forgets about the pain he's caused as well as the pain he's received.”

Padme winced at the bitterness that weighed down the air between them, but Obi-Wan strode off and paid no mind to her reaction.

Shmi shook her head, but said nothing.

Padme straightened her back and sighed. “I'll have to have a longer conversation with him about Anakin at some point.”

But she couldn't shake off the point he'd made, either. Anakin had caused so much damage, across the galaxy, and she'd asked him to come back home with her.

For all that she could tell herself that it was all bad decisions and the Emperor's manipulation, for all that the Alliance made gains from the Emperor's loss, for all that Vader's vanishing would shake the foundations of the image the Empire had been built on...

Her stomach turned. She found herself shuddering, staring at the cold floor as if peace of mind could be found in the pitted grey duracrete.

 _Maybe forgiveness isn't what he needs_. But what else did most people have to give?

“Padme?”

She started and straightened up again. “I'll be fine. I'd forgotten for a moment... just how much damage they did to each other.” Just the two of them on Mustafar, duelling in the midst of streams of lava that must have seemed an eerie echo of the fury that had driven Anakin to choke her. Perhaps she was catastrophising the scene in her mind, making the fight more personal, more vicious than it had been. She'd never know. Neither of the men would want to relive that day.

Obi-Wan had loved Anakin as his brother, and yet he'd be one of the slowest to forgive.

“I'll walk you back to your rooms.” Shmi put a gentle hand on Padme's shoulder. It made her shudder, but she nodded and smiled. Shmi's presence was comforting, the way Anakin's had been before darkness and bad dreams had made him grow colder and colder until he fell into shadow.

The shadow of Vader was the Emperor's weapon, hard to blame and easy to forgive. The tool does not commit the crime. But Anakin Skywalker, the broken man lying in the medbay... the man had to answer for his actions, and Padme couldn't let herself forget them, for all that she wanted the innocence of quiet days on Naboo back.

Their footsteps rang through a space that sounded emptier than it should have been. She had to sit down, read something other than status reports and political news. She couldn't face Anakin, Obi-Wan, or the needs of the Alliance with her head in this state.

 _I needed Shmi here_. Padme could pride herself on being a once Queen and Senator, but she couldn't bring Anakin back on her own.

_And he can't fight his way back on his own, either._

The thought made the crumbling in her cold chest ease a little as the two women made their way across the dapple-lit glade to the accommodation building hidden among lichen-covered trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have to rejig a couple of points in my outline because of my lack of planning for the medical business, so I can't even hint at what's going to happen next with much accuracy, but there is a conversation coming up between Obi-Wan and some small children that may be interesting.


	8. Walk, Then Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life would be so much simpler if Padme didn't have to worry about the galaxy's politics and the future of the Rebel Alliance as well as the broken man in the medbay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Padme and Anakin ended up taking more words than anticipated, so now a fair amount of my outline's been thrown off, but it's nothing insurmountable. Or at any rate, the process of fixing it should not cause anguish on the level of what the last chapter inflicted. Technical details and plot adjustment I can handle.  
> I also wrote a solid three quarters of this in one sitting tonight, so I'm just hoping I haven't lost all track of details somewhere in the middle. Writing several hours away from caffeine can do that to a person.

Padme frowned at the door as the knock repeated a third time. “Is it urgent?”

“It's Father!” Leia's squeak had Padme out of her seat. “The doctor said he can walk again!”

She knocked a holo-image over in her haste to open the door. Both the twins stood outside, fumbling for each other's hands and too excited to hold on long. “What did they say?”

“All the cybernetics are working. The doctor said that he's still wobbling a lot and he shouldn't be walking on his own too much to begin with but he's done a few steps and he should recover most of his... range of motion.” Luke hesitated in his gabbling for long enough that his sister could cut in.

“He's still covered in scars, but the doctor didn't say anything about that.”

Padme had a good deal of faith in the Alliance's medical staff – their field training had involved some hideous wounds, so they'd had plenty of opportunity to hone even the more arcane of operating room skills – but she had to concede to reality on that point. “He's unlikely to lose the scars unless he has complete skin grafts, and that'd be a dangerous procedure.”

Luke looked down at the floor. Leia shrugged and made a grab at Padme's sleeve. “I know you said you were busy, but can you come see him?”

Her train of thought stalled for a moment. She took a deep breath. “There's nothing that'll suffer for a few moment's delay.” And she had to talk to him sooner or later. In the week since the reconstructive surgery she'd only managed a few quick snatches of conversation, and with the Organas pressing for her return – not that she could blame them, with the news coming out of the Senate – she had to swallow her fear and move forward.

She let the children lead her down the corridor, struggling to maintain a smile for the excited pair. They seemed preoccupied enough with their jostling and shoving each other that they might not have noticed, but she didn't want to explain to them right now. They shouldn't have been here for this part in the first place. Not that there wasn't something positive to be gleaned from their interactions with Anakin – Shmi had mentioned that he was always gentle with the children, and Padme could remember several offhand comments from Obi-Wan over the years about Anakin's fondness for the younglings at the Temple.

The younglings that had then been killed by the flash of a blue lightsaber blade.

She shuddered. Dragging the Anakin she'd known out of the ashes of Vader had to be a net gain for the galaxy – the Emperor seldom did anything without a proxy, after all, and Vader had been his most powerful weapon – but Vader, for all that the shadow attached to that name had little in common with the man she thought she'd known, hadn't been conjured by Palpatine from the void of space.

_Not now._ There was work to do. There was always work to do. Maybe the Alliance could rid the galaxy of the Emperor's dirty hand prints, but it would take time. More time than it would take to get Anakin back on his own feet, physical and mental. He wasn't safe yet.

“Hi, Chewie!” Luke called with a wave to the Wookiee as they turned into the hangar. The Wookiee looked up, mouth broadening in what seemed to be a grin as he waved back. Han appeared from around the back of his ship, one corner of his mouth turning up at the sight of Luke. His gaze skipped straight over Leia and to Padme.

“Hyperdrive still isn't working. I don't know what's gotten into the ship.”

Padme shrugged. “I'm confident you and Chewbacca will work it out, though the pilots wouldn't mind if you asked them for assistance.”

The smuggler nodded and stuck his thumbs in his belt. “I don't suppose you had any other favours you wanted to call in before I get my pardon?”

She hesitated. “Ah... there may be another trip that it would be more convenient for you to make than anyone else.” Explaining to the twins... too much to think about now. “We can discuss that further if you manage to fix your ship in advance of the departure time.”

He nodded. “Your highnessness.”

She forced herself not to react to the mangled honorific and nodded her acknowledgement. “Thank you, captain.”

The twins hurried on ahead through the hangar as the smuggler retreated behind his ship. She sped up to follow them, letting herself sigh once the smuggler was out of earshot. His presence had been convenient, but she couldn't ignore the cold twinge at the thought that she'd dragged him into seven sorts of high treason just by requiring his services for her rescue mission. And she couldn't be sure he'd stay quiet once he got his pardon, either, although he wasn't likely to trust Imperial forces much more than she did.

Well, she was dead as far as the legal documents were concerned. That would have to be enough.

She hadn't seen Obi-Wan for a couple of days. Would that be a problem?

One of the doctors, Mione Javal, appeared to greet the family at the entrance to the medbay. “Padme. I assume the children have already told you the good news.”

Padme nodded, with a smile for the long-suffering doctor, who'd already bent down to pick up the twins, one in each arm. “I have. Perhaps the bad news before I go in?”

Mione nodded, shifting Luke in her arm to get him away from her lekku. “While he should recover basic motor skills rather soon, it could be more than a year before he is fully physically recovered. The skin grafts that would be necessary to remove the scars could be completed, but it would only be safe to do so over the course of several years, small patches at a time. After the medical trauma he's gone through... I wonder if it would be advisable to recommend such operations.”

The choice of words made Padme hesitate. “Medical trauma?”

The Twi'lek doctor shrugged. “I'm no psychiatrist, but most people don't regard medical apparatus with the fear that he does. And looking at that suit...”

And Cylo, the doctor who'd made it. But Padme didn't want to talk about that. She nodded. “I understand. That might be better left for him to decide.”

Mione nodded with a faint smile and stepped aside. “I won't keep you.”

Padme smiled and stepped inside. Anakin was behind the first door on the left. It hissed open as she came closer. The children hurried in behind her, cutting off the door just as it was about to slide shut.

Anakin was sitting up now, new prosthetics covered though the scarred skin was bare, and he turned his head at the noise, then broke into a grin that drew a faint wince. It had taken Padme a few days to notice that, and her ribs seemed to fall a little closer to dust every time she saw it now.

It couldn't be anything other than the pain, really. All those scars, _sweet love of the Force_ , it was a wonder the muscles in his face still moved. But it hurt, even though it was an expression of happiness that Vader might not have been capable of.

“How are you feeling, Ani?” She tried to keep her voice soft. Neither her concerns nor a forced gaiety would be helpful.

“Better.” The smile deepened in his cheeks as he glanced at the twins. 'Better' had been his answer every time Padme asked. He did seem to be getting more lively, but she found herself wondering if he was forcing himself to feel better, forcing his body to move more and more instead of letting himself recover in his own time.

If that had been one of the lessons the Jedi taught him... Force knew he'd have learnt bad things from them, if the way Obi-Wan had dealt with the aftermath of Mustafar was anything to go by. How many of their apprentices had the Jedi failed? “I heard you walked a few steps.”

“Not many.” Luke had found his father's hand; Anakin's fingers curled around Luke's like they were brittle reeds. “But I managed it.”

Padme nodded, forced a smile. There was no short way through this part, the rehabilitation and recovery. “That's good. Is it tiring?”

He nodded. “These limbs... they fit better... but they're still new.”

“Do they work better?” Leia asked.

Anakin hesitated, wide-eyed gaze resting on his daughter for a few moments before the soft whisper dragged itself through his throat again. “I think they will. It's been... it's been a long time with the old ones.”

So careful not to step out of line. Just as well for the children, maybe, but how long before the damage that he was holding back bubbled to the surface? _Well, this might be a chance to find out._ “There's news out of the Core Worlds that I think you should hear about.”

The stiffening in Anakin's body was no more than a weak shiver, but Luke clutched tighter on his father's hand, looking up with surprise-shot fear. Anakin smiled again, moving his thumb over Luke's hand the way Padme had seen Shmi do with Anakin. “Has something happened?”

“It's always busy in the Core Worlds.” She shrugged, forced herself to chuckle. “To the best of my knowledge, you've been declared missing, assumed captured. No data has made its way into the public eye about our... escapades on board the battle station, but nonetheless many places have reported higher rates of stormtrooper patrols.”

“No data at all? You're that confident in your spies?”

She shrugged again and forced the lump in her throat back. He'd been standing behind the Chancellor's chair when she'd brought the Petition of the 2,000 in front of Palpatine, and the wily old man must have had Anakin lured in a long way by then. “Well, the network is well established by now, and it's always been reliable.”

He nodded. It was hard to make out the details of expression underneath the scars, but she knew Anakin. Had known. Had thought she'd known. She'd get by. “There's been an upset in the Imperial Senate. The Emperor bypassed them to create new taxing legislature for the Outer Rim territories, and it appears to have drawn attention to his other circumventions of the Imperial Charter.”

“He meant to bring peace...” Then Anakin gulped and looked down. Leia frowned and moved closer to him, the twins framing their father like side panels of a Ryloth triptych.

“He was the one who started the war, Ani.” She sighed, glanced down at her boots. “At least, that's what everything we know suggests. He always had reports of the movements of the Separatists long before anyone in the armies knew, and he was always careful timing his changes to the Republic's constitution... he had to know more than he let on.”

“He came for me on Mustafar.” The broken whisper made Padme and the twins flinch. “After Obi-Wan left me to burn.”

Bitter words, so bitter they burnt Padme's tongue for all that she hadn't been the one to say them. She shook her head. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Queen and Senator. Now was not the time to mention that it was strange for Palpatine to know that Mustafar was the place to send someone in order to end the Separatist movement. _The Emperor was involved in the medical procedures? They'd have had to be immediate to even keep you alive..._ She sighed. Those were questions that would cause more pain in the answering than they'd give closure. At least for now. “I know it's difficult, Ani.”

He didn't seem to be listening, his head bowed. The twins glanced at each other, hands sneaking across Anakin's lap to brush each other. He twitched upwards as he whispered, “He told me you were dead. That I'd killed you.”

Padme shuddered, a hand going towards her open mouth before she forced her arm to her side and the air through her teeth. Had that been what made him hesitate in shock on the bridge in the battle station? Behind the mask, it had been impossible to see even a dim reflection of Anakin himself. But he'd frozen up for a moment, lost the implacable fury that had made Vader such a powerful sword for the Emperor.

Because he'd been force-fed that lie for ten years only to have her appear in front of him again without warning?

He jerked upright, out of his chair, startling the twins aside as he took three shaky steps forward to catch Padme's arms. He was back down to the height he should have been now, still a head taller than her. Shock blue eyes locked with hers. She held her arms steady. She could take some of his weight, and if she didn't he'd fall.

The last time they'd been this close, he'd still been trapped behind the dark mask of Vader. The time before that, she'd broken down and run out of words to convey her desperation, and then he'd let the Dark Side run roughshod over his sense and choked her to unconsciousness.

Perhaps that had been part of her failure on Mustafar. For all that he'd struggled to find the words himself, Anakin was by nature emotional. She'd seen that in his excitement after the Boonta Eve Classic that had, by a convoluted route, saved her planet. She'd seen it on Tatooine after he'd gone through the Tusken Raider camp and taken everything apart in his storm of grief. Only in the later stages of the Clone Wars had he really gone cold. That should have been a warning sign.

“What else did he lie about?” The ragged whisper, all that he could manage, so weak a sound and so alive despite the frailty, tore through her ears and tugged her mind back to the present, to the scars and strain above her. “The Jedi failed, but the Emperor...”

She settled her hands around his elbows, delicate for a moment before she remembered that both arms were prosthetic and there were no scars to aggravate with the pressure of hot skin. “No one had all the answers, Ani. The Republic and the Jedi... they were losing their way. Palpatine used that for his own plans. All we can do now is rebuild.”

He nodded. His breaths came in rushing gasps from weak, new lungs. “And you're going to be the one to rebuild?”

She nodded. The smile was involuntary. But welcome. “I certainly intend to try.”

The smile split the scars on his face open again. He pulled her closer, into a hug – a careful one, he was aware of the scars too, but the movement was still familiar despite the time that had passed. The breath that filled her lungs gave her ribs a bit more strength to contain her quivering heart. _We can make it better again._

The twins approached hand in hand, looking up with wide eyes. Padme barely had time to notice them before Anakin turned his head and, with a faint rumbling sound only just recognisable as a chuckle, he let one arm fall to let them into the hug. The pair clung onto both parents for dear life.

 

“He's getting better.” Luke grinned as he said it, double suns shining in his eyes.

Leia nodded. She wanted to contain herself and be dignified, but seeing Father hug Mother had put happy butterflies in her stomach. She wanted to skip through the hangar, but then Luke would have to run to catch up. “Do you think he'll like Alderaan?”

“Alderaan is pretty.”

Leia nodded. “Do you think he ever went there when he was a Jedi and could see properly?”

Luke shrugged. “Alderaan is peaceful. He wouldn't have needed to. I don't think so, anyway.”

“But maybe they had to go just to prove that they were doing something. Or they were sent to negotiate. Like Obi-Wan was doing the first time he met Mother.”

Luke shrugged, still grinning. Then the grin began to slip as he slowed down and stumbled to a stop. “He's still angry, isn't he?”

“Obi-Wan?” Leia frowned. “Maybe he is. I haven't seen him for days.”

“Is he still here?”

“He can't leave without Mother. And she can't leave until she's made sure everyone is safe. Mon Mothma's been busy too.”

Luke nodded and brushed his fringe out of his eyes. “Mon is nice.”

Leia nodded, but her mind was on other tracks. “We should find Obi-Wan?”

“What? What if he doesn't want to talk?”

Leia shrugged and started walking again, faster this time. Luke had to jog between a couple of ships to catch up. “What are you going to say to him, Leia?”

“I don't know yet.” But Obi-Wan was being silly. He couldn't carry on like that. Mother had asked for him to come away from Tatooine for a reason. She had to have a reason.

They bumped into the Togruta who'd greeted them when they arrived – Tinaaka? Leia wasn't sure, but that sounded right – outside among the trees. She smiled at the twins. “Where are you off in such a hurry?”

“To find Obi-Wan,” Leia declared before starting off again. The Togruta nodded and moved on.

“I think she was laughing at us,” Luke murmured, looking back over his shoulder to check that she couldn't hear them.

Leia shrugged. “Doesn't matter.”

Obi-Wan had one of the rooms right at the top of the pyramid where everyone lived. It must have been an old building, and it made funny echoes, but Leia liked it. They took the elevator as far as it went – the elevator was much newer than the rest of the building – and then walked up the stairs for the last three floors, all too small for the elevator from the ground floor to fit.

Leia had a stitch in one side by the time they reached Obi-Wan's door, but she stood up straight. Luke didn't look like he'd had to work at all, but maybe he was just hiding it too. He looked at the door, then at Leia, then back at the door. “Do you knock or do I knock?”

“You go first.” The happy butterflies had turned nervous now. Obi-Wan had been a Jedi, just like Father – he'd even trained Father, but that hadn't gone well in the end. Leia didn't know how to talk to him.

Luke lifted a hand and held it there. Leia scowled at him. He knocked three times in a rush and stepped back from the door, eyes wide.

No one answered. Leia gave it a count of five to make sure Obi-Wan wasn't coming to the door, then stepped closer and knocked as hard as she could, once, twice, three times, four times.

“We'll wake the neighbours up,” Luke whispered, glancing around like a startled womp rat.

Leia shrugged. “It's the middle of the day.”

The door ground open. Obi-Wan looked down at the pair, sighed and stepped away from the door. “Does your mother have anything to say to me that she didn't have time to tell me herself?”

Luke frowned up at the old Jedi as he walked past Leia into the room. Leia drew herself up to her full height – that was still a lot shorter than Obi-Wan, but she felt taller with her back straight anyway. “Mother hasn't said anything. We wanted to talk to you.”

Obi-Wan glanced from Leia to Luke, lifted one eyebrow, and shut the door behind him as Luke perched on the sofa. The room was bare and dusty in the corners. Obi-Wan hadn't bothered to clean it since they'd arrived. How many weeks would it take before he'd notice the dust? “What was there to talk about? Vader's been taken from the Emperor. Now what?”

“Now he gets better. He's walking a little now.” Luke bounced in his seat a couple of times, but the enthusiasm was drained as Obi-Wan sighed and slumped into the armchair, reaching for a flask on the table. Then he stiffened and sat back without picking up the flask.

“Why are you so angry about it? You were best friends back when you were Jedi.” Leia sat down next to her brother and patted her skirt out into smoothness. It'd crumple again as soon as she moved, but it looked nicer when it was smooth.

“We were.” The old Jedi folded his hands in his lap, looked down at them, and sighed. “The boy I trained is gone. You can take him out of the suit, but you can't take away what he did.”

Luke frowned. “But things still get better if he stops doing what the Emperor wants him to. Right?”

Obi-Wan shuddered and lifted his head. Dark eyes fixed on Luke, who shivered. Leia frowned. “The whole point is for him to get better. Not to get him to stop existing.”

Obi-Wan shut his eyes and leaned back, collapsing against the back of the armchair. Leia leaned forward over the coffee table. “Obi-Wan?”

She was about to get up when Luke grabbed her hand. “I think it hurts him too.”

Leia scowled at her brother, but she couldn't hold the expression for long. Luke's eyes were round and soft, like Mother's eyes got when she talked about how Father had been back when they were just married. Then she turned her head to Obi-Wan, whose chest was rising and falling in slow waves. “You couldn't kill Father, could you?”

Another flinch ran through the old Jedi like bugs under his skin. Luke winced. Leia forced herself to stand still, although watching Obi-Wan shudder made her skin crawl.

“I couldn't.” He was as quiet as Father's whisper. “And people keep on dying around him.”

Keep on dying? Had Father killed that many of the Jedi himself? Mother didn't talk much about that.

“Obi-Wan? Are you awake?”

Grandma's voice carried through the door and made Obi-Wan jump out of his seat, eyes widening between the wrinkles. He was across the room before Leia could say a word. “What brings you out here, Shmi?”

“Padme just told me that she's planning to travel back to Alderaan within a couple of days.” Grandma glanced around the room, frowning at the dust before she saw Leia and Luke perched on the sofa. She smiled at the pair. Her smile was... tired-happy, like she had more reason to be sad but she still wasn't. Like Father's smile between the crumpled skin. “With the children, of course. The Organas need her help with political matters thanks to some upset in the Senate. She assumed you'd be travelling back with her.”

“You and... Anakin?” He scraped the words over his tongue. Luke frowned and moved closer to Leia.

“Anakin wants to stay close to her, but the doctors may say otherwise. It's looking hopeful, though. I'll stay where Anakin is. He needs family close to him.”

Obi-Wan looked back over his shoulder at the twins. Something in his expression seemed to weigh his shoulders down like his feelings were a weight on them. Then he turned back to Grandma with a quick nod. “I'll travel back. Perhaps I can be of use on Alderaan. It'd be inconvenient to travel back to Tatooine.”

Grandma nodded with another smile, leaning sideways to look past Obi-Wan at Luke and Leia. “It's nearly time for dinner. You don't want to be late.”

Leia nodded and stood up. Luke followed a step behind. She sneaked a glance at Obi-Wan as they walked past him out of the door. His eyes were dark and heavy in a way that Leia didn't remember ever seeing Mother's be, even when she talked about the bad things Father had done.

Grandma stayed ahead of them on the way out of the pyramid. Luke seemed distracted – he kept glancing up at the ceiling or turning his head around even though the walls looked the same all the way through the building.

When it looked like Grandma wasn't paying much attention to them, Leia grabbed at Luke's hand. “I think you were right about Obi-Wan.”

He blinked at her, then nodded, head hanging down. Leia straightened her back, but her hand clutched tight around Luke's like she needed his weight to balance hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be back on Alderaan soon - could be awkward, even with Padme and Shmi around to negotiate and persuade people...


	9. Banked Coals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was bound to be an explosion sooner or later. The only question was how soon and how big.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the magic of cobbling together a reasonably appropriate playlist in five minutes, sitting down and knocking out three thousand words without holding your breath through the tricky parts. I had a couple hundred words of the first scene written before today, but it was not a fun scene to write and I now need a nap.  
> The thing about Anakin's mutism issues is from redrikki's Wordspring, because based on my understanding of the Jedi, Anakin, and my own experiences with bullying, I am absolutely willing to accept that headcanon.  
> Anyway, regarding the outline rejigging I've been grumbling about on Tumblr, I eventually decided that it'd be best just to add another chapter to get everything in. This is bugging me somewhat, because that means I now have thirteen chapters planned, and twelve is a much nicer number than thirteen. It may say something about me that I consider this an issue.

Old colours rediscovered made it hard to keep his eyes on Padme, on the door, on the twins, on anything. Fabric close to his skin again after ten years – more comfortable than Cylo's contraption had ever been, but strange, now, unfamiliar for all that he'd worn garments like this for years. “Are you sure this is safe, Padme?”

She looked up, smiled, reached a hand out to rest on his arm. “No one here will hurt you or hand you in. I promise.”

Glossy towers and palaces like these were the ground that his Master had been raised on. But so had Padme. He nodded, reached a hand out to Luke. A comforting weight, a delicate one – Luke didn't dare tug too hard. His legs still shook if he moved too fast. Anakin took a deep breath, forced a twitching smile just long enough to make the scars sting. “Lead the way.”

She nodded and stepped forward. Her short steps were slowed for him. He still wavered. The twins fell in beside him and Padme. Bright candles in the Force. The sparks he'd sensed wandering the Emperor's toy of domination. Cold shudders pulled fragile tendons tight. That station was a terror that could rival the furnace of the Force, at least in the minds of people like those replacement clones who'd wandered it alongside him.

Replacement clones from people who once had names and faces. The shock when Padme had called him Anakin – would the stormtroopers echo that? Replacement clones who'd been taught to be as indistinguishable from the next as thousands upon thousands of men who'd been drawn from the genetic blueprint of a single man –

“Anakin.” Soft words. She was always so calm. “Remember what to say if you want out. Doesn't matter why. You can say it.”

He nodded, shivered, drew himself upright, nodded again. “I understand.”

The doors opened without a sound. No mechanical hiss, no cold clunk as they vanished into the walls. The people around the table, Shmi, Bail and Breha – they'd grown older too – rose from their seats as Padme led the way in. Of course they'd grown older. Ten years. Enough time for the twins to go from a waiting joy to children older than he'd grown on Tatooine.

“Anakin.” Breha inclined her head. Did she shiver? Did he shiver? Anakin took a deep breath and bowed his head. Scars twinged.

“It's good to see you.”

Bail nodded and pulled a chair out next to him. Luke moved to steady Anakin as he shuffled over and collapsed into the chair. Less dignity in the new prostheses than in the old armour, but the colours, they were so much brighter... Force, the room was cold with shades of blue, a chill he'd missed in the flames that the third slave master had left behind. Not now, not now. “You've... resisted the Emperor since he took control?”

“Not as actively as your wife,” Bail demurred as he sat down. Padme settled in the chair next to Anakin, the children tucked between her and Shmi. “And the Senate's power has become more and more limited. But we do what we can to stop the worst abuses of power. Without taking up blasters there's little more that we can do here.”

“The Senate never solved anything by sitting around and talking.”

Padme's shiver made the words that came next freeze in his throat. Breha's head dropped until he couldn't look her in the eyes. “It needed reform. But without representation of the people, democracy becomes forfeit.”

“The Republic was failing. Had it been stronger, the Emperor wouldn't have been able to bring it down.” Padme's words were hushed. He shuddered. Cracking skin that still stung from the hot coals of Mustafar. Searing heat rose from memory to pain. A hand reached for his under the table, soft skin that slipped around the machinery like a velvet glove. “But not everyone can sit in a starfighter and go up against the Imperial fleet.”

He forced himself to nod. Open windows; the air was fresh. But it choked him nonetheless, fragile lungs still learning how to work. New lungs; new organs to replace the fourth slave master's cage. No cages any longer, no chains.

But he'd grown so used to moving with that weight on him.

Anakin took a deep breath. “Even as Chancellor he disregarded the Senate. What can you do now to prevent him acting as he pleases?”

“Laws must still be passed to enforce his will. Enough resistance in the Senate can prevent those laws taking shape.” Bail leaned forward. He seemed less stiff than he had a moment ago.

“Excuse me, sir...” Rigid and unnatural elocution; a droid of some sort. He turned his head as the door slid open. A golden protocol droid walked in, staggered back as he saw the faces in the room turn towards him.

A stinging smile as the wheezy shadow of laughter passed his lips. “Threepio.”

The droid leaned back, lifting his arms in surprise. “Oh! Goodness gracious! Whatever happened to you?”

“He had his memory wiped near the end of the Clone Wars,” Padme commented in an undertone before straightening her back. “Threepio, this is Anakin Skywalker. He built you when he was young.”

Threepio gasped. “The Maker! Bless my circuits!”

Another stinging smile. They'd get easier. They'd get easier. Anakin nodded. Slowly, slowly. The scar tissue was thick around his neck. It'd get easier.

“Do you have something to report?” Bail asked. He spoke to Threepio the way he'd done to the children when they'd arrived on Alderaan two days ago. Threepio had found a safe place here. The memory of burning heat mellowed to a pleasant warmth with Naboo's breeze murmuring in his ears.

Threepio nodded and stiffened into as formal a position as his flailing arms allowed. “The Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi has returned from his excursion and apologises for missing the call to a meeting.”

The breeze burst into a sandstorm as he sucked in a breath that scraped against every raw strip of flesh in his throat. A hand on his arm. Did someone speak?

“Father!”

The children were on their feet, their hands joined Padme's on his arm. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. “You're safe here,” Padme murmured as Luke let his head settle against fabric pressing into skin mangled by hot coals. “Do you want to leave?”

He shook his head. Could he stand now? Shakes and shudders – it was already hard to walk. Could he leave now?

“Ah. Good to see you so well recovered from the armour.”

A bloody film slid over his eyes as he watched the third slave master stalk into the room, old cloak whipping around his ankles. He strode around the table to sit next to Shmi. Did she move away from Obi-Wan, or was that a trick of his imagination?

Luke clambered up into his lap, careful not to press too hard. After a moment's deliberation, Leia joined him. He put his arms around the children. Had to keep them safe. Obi-Wan and his cruelty could wait. Padme, Shmi, the children... they were more important. They mattered more than Obi-Wan and his cruelty. The pain he'd left behind as he picked up the lightsaber and walked away, leaving him to burn.

Anakin took a deep breath. “The Senate. Can it stall laws even when the Emperor orders it?”

Bail frowned. “At first we could. It's becoming... more and more difficult. I suspect the Emperor plans to dissolve the Senate at some point in the near future, and that will be an issue. This recent upset may be what pushes him to do it.”

“What upset?” Obi-Wan asked, folding his arms on the edge of the table.

“The Emperor bypassed the Senate for new taxing legislature, and in the course of complaining about that the Mon Calamari found a trove of records detailing other transgressions of the Imperial Charter.” Bail's gaze flickered to him before fixing on Obi-Wan. “The news of Vader's vanishing didn't help.”

 _Vader_ was a slave name. He shuddered. Luke leant in, put a hand on his shoulder. Deep breaths. They hissed in his throat still. How long before he could move without some part of his body drawing up the fires he'd been left in ten years ago? No more cages, no more chains. But still he choked on something tight around his throat, a noose that he could only trace to Obi-Wan's cold blankness. Had he seemed willing when Padme approached him? Seemed happy to get his _apprentice_ back?

The sandstorm's hiss didn't obscure Obi-Wan's dull words. “I wonder how long it will be before he finds Vader. The Emperor is... not strong in the Force, but skilled and wily.”

“He will not find Vader.” The words tore free like the implacable drone the mask had pulled from his throat and the thought made him shiver as Padme's hand jumped back to his arm. Luke's grip got a little tighter. Leia looked up – bright eyes, but stern. She had a fire in her too. Who would it burn?

Obi-Wan lifted his head. Still blank. Still dead. “Do you expect me to believe that in less than three weeks, you will forget more than twenty years of what the Emperor taught you?”

Tendons snapped into shuddering steel as he hissed, drew his arm away from Padme's hand. As if they sensed some impending firestorm building in his chest, the children slid away from him, sought shelter between their mother and grandmother. The weight on his lap gone, he rose to his feet. “He taught me what you refused to. Don't ignore your own failure.”

“So you can forget what you did and leave me with all the guilt?” Not just blank now; ice spreading across the table to meet the white hot fire in his chest. “I saw the Temple after you went through it. I saw the bodies left behind. You can't bargain for the lives you took -”

He meant to say _Enough!_

He meant to say _Enough!_ , shout it with enough power to push back the ice, make the fire in his core settle. Calm the sandstorm to the soft breeze that had let peace back into his head. But the words were swallowed by a roaring in the Force.

Snapping shadows in his head blotted out the blinding colour of the sandstorm as Obi-Wan's face went white, as his breaths turned to coughs turned to weak gagging noises. A hand reached to his throat. Did someone speak? He meant to say _Enough!_

No, too much.

Air rushed into the cavity of his chest. He forced his hands together. _Enough!_ The sandstorm had to settle.

A home he'd learnt to hate. A home that Shmi had been left behind on while he grew up to be the galaxy's hero. Boiling air under twin suns. Twin suns, twin children whose presence was lit up by the Force. His children, Padme's children. Family you protect.

Prosthetic legs collapsed. Whining winds of the sandstorm faded to distant roars to rushing breaths to silence as he crumpled. Obi-Wan had a hand to his throat. Eyes wide, face chalky. Like he couldn't breathe. The same chalk that had dusted Cylo as he died. The same chalk that had coloured Padme someone else before she collapsed. Padme too. Eyes shut. There were faces around him that he didn't want to see.

“Enough.” Who was he whispering the word to? He barely heard his own voice. Silence like this had no place in a room so full of people.

“Ani?”

Still strong. The angel he'd thought he'd seen when the Queen of Naboo came into Watto's shop in simple handmaiden's garb.

Another breath. The words stuck in his throat. Another breath. He knew what to do. Would it work? Would it be enough? _Enough._ “Space.”

“Of course.” Then she raised her voice as a hand cradled his arm. “We'll take this up again another time.” He rose to his feet without looking up. Luke and Leia. What had he done?

She might have been speaking as she walked him out of the room. The door hissed shut behind them. He started. Somehow her voice made it through the winds tearing into his head. “It's okay, Ani. You'll be okay.”

“Obi-Wan... did I...”

“He'll be fine. You didn't ch... choke him long enough to do any lasting damage.”

Her voice did crack. She remembered too. “I'm sorry.” Weak words. What else was there to do but apologise? That was the Dark Side running through him. Yoda, Mace Windu, Obi-Wan himself, every Jedi Master had called a fall to the Dark Side final. Could he ever wrench his destiny free of it?

“Ani.” She stopped, stepped in front of him to look up and meet his gaze. Still soft, still kind. How? “We don't forget our mistakes easily, and it takes time to unlearn the misinformation that led us to them.” She broke off for a moment, sighed, wrapped a hand around his fingers. “But... to be angry is to be human. Obi-Wan couldn't teach you to let go and be as dispassionate as the Jedi expected...” She looked aside, sighed again. He kept holding his breath, waiting for some condemnation. What else could he expect? But she smiled up at him as she settled on her words. “Perhaps that's not what you needed to be taught. The Jedi failed you, and they failed him because their teachings gave him no way to help you, or himself after Mustafar.”

“He left me to -”

“Ani.” She put a hand on his chest. “One moment. When bad things happen... few people mean to cause tragedy. Often everyone does something that hurts someone else. Everyone is in pain, and everyone is to blame for some of it. All we can do is pick up the pieces and try to put them back together.” She hesitated again, looked down. “Obi-Wan hasn't learnt how to do that, so I guess the Jedi didn't help you with that either. But we have time.”

He shook his head, mute again for a moment.

Sidious had been the man to help him find his words after the callous words of those in the Temple had made him lose the will to speak. The Jedi had been no help then. The protectors of the galaxy, and they couldn't protect their own. But Sidious had lied, torn the democracy that Padme had believed in apart, let Cylo put him in that cage. He shut his eyes. The breath that tore through his chest seemed lined with glass.

“If the Jedi were wrong, and the Emperor is wrong...” He couldn't finish the sentence.

“I know, Ani.” She forced a smile, but the glitter in her eyes was wrong. Tears just held back, not joy. “It was never going to be easy. But I believe you can do it.”

He nodded, bit back the prickle in his own eyes. Salt water over scars – that could only hurt. “The children... for them to see...”

“I haven't lied to them.” She shrugged, chuckled though the mirth was weak. “I doubt they understand everything, but they know that you're likely to struggle. They might be scared, but they take after you. They want to get to know their father, and so far they seem willing to wait for you to fight your way back.”

He couldn't feel the sting of his smile around the sudden bubbling warmth in his chest. Unfamiliar, and welcome. The soft breeze of Naboo returned to his ears. “I should... spend some time alone. Let myself think.” Stay away from Obi-Wan, for now. His name still made the sandstorm whistle in the back of his mind. He needed time to let the furnace in his chest, the coal of the Dark Side, work its way out. The breeze was soft and easy to drown out.

Padme nodded as she stepped out of his way. “Take whatever time you need.”

 

Han scowled up at Chewie. “I'll admit, the boy is nice, but did you really think it was that important to be useful to her worshipfulness that you broke the hyperdrive on purpose? What if the Empire had turned up at their base while we were still grounded?”

Chewie growled back at him. He rolled his eyes and turned away. “Well, we've got the pardon now. Guess we can bounce out of here once we've fuelled up and go back to doing things that make us need pardons.”

Tapping footsteps made him hesitate underneath the ship. He stepped sideways so he could see the approach to the repair hangar.

The guy who'd been Darth Vader until her worshipfulness had dragged him to Dantooine still looked like death on two legs, and there was something about the mottled burn scars that made him even harder to look at now than when he'd been a dark cyborg of inhuman height. He didn't seem to notice that someone was watching him and just ambled around the hangar, running a hand over the side of one of the smaller ships and paying close attention to a collection of astromech droids in a corner.

“You looking for something, old man?”

The (ex?) Sith Lord froze, then turned to look at Han. “Nothing specific.” Han had to strain to hear him. Since the mask had come off, seemed the guy couldn't speak in more than a whisper. “I thought you'd have left by now?”

Han shrugged as he stepped out from under the Falcon to meet Anakin in the centre of the hangar. “Turns out the Falcon needed more repairs than I realised, and I'd rather have her in top condition before I go flying out to Kessel.”

Anakin nodded, his gaze drifting from Han to the ship. Now he wasn't being watched, Han let himself shudder. Whatever had made the old guy that much of a scarred mess, it couldn't have been pretty. “How good a ship is she?”

“Well, she can go point five past light speed. Previous owner told me that in theory, she'd be able to do the Kessel Run in less than fifteen parsecs, provided she had a good pilot.” He grinned. “I'm tempted to try it at some point.”

He'd expected Anakin to react with anger to that, but he just nodded, still gazing at the ship like it was some piece of high art. “You ever been a pilot?”

A smile flickered on the old man's face for a moment, before the scars forced his expression back to neutral. “Quite a lot. I was a podracer as a child, and I flew in the Clone Wars.”

“Podracing?” Han frowned and stepped closer to the Falcon so he could lean on one of the landing supports. “Thought humans didn't have the reflexes for that.”

“Most don't. I was the only human in the races on Tatooine.”

“You ever win anything?”

“One race. My last. The Boonta Eve Classic.”

Han would have pressed further on the podracing, but Anakin's head dropped for a moment, and even if he could work with Hutts, he wasn't sure he wanted to press his luck too far with a Sith Lord. Even one that had been dragged out of the Empire by a stubborn politician. “The Clone Wars too?”

Anakin nodded. “Any Jedi who could fly a starfighter did so at some point. I was quite good at it, and I... worked in a repair shop for a long time, so I could handle missions on remote planets or any place where the supply network was subpar.” He turned his head as Han nodded and pointed to the astromech droid corner. “My old astromech is over there. Padme must have had him brought here after the end of the war.”

“Oh?” Han had never liked using astromech droids much, and since Chewbacca had joined him he'd not needed them much, but Anakin seemed to have been fond of his old droid. “Ever made itself useful?”

“The thing about starfighters is that you're often being shot at while you fly them. As a pilot it's hard to make repairs while you're in the air.” Another flickering smile vanished in an instant, and the old guy winced as he let his hand fall. Those scars must have been pretty painful. Well, they certainly looked it.

“Sounds like you're suffering from spaceflight withdrawal.”

Anakin shrugged. “I did fly at times with the Empire... not as often as I liked.”

Han glanced at the little ship in the corner, the one that Anakin had seemed particularly struck by. “You reckon you're up to it now? I can hotwire a little ship like that no problem, and if your old astromech's around, it might be glad to see you.”

He frowned. “That might not be... appropriate.”

“Sod appropriate. Wasn't appropriate to sneak onto your exploding moon to kidnap you either, and that didn't stop her worshipfulness,” Han retorted as he strode across the hangar to the little ship. “You know what type of ship this is? Don't think I've seen one like it before.”

“It's an _Actis_ -class interceptor. I flew one like it in the later stages of the Clone Wars. Lost it on board a Separatist flagship.”

Han hesitated. Then he nodded and carried on. “You sure seem to know a lot about ships.”

“It was important when I was young.”

Something about his tone made Han unwilling to pry further. Even in the reedy whisper there was a hint of steel, and this man had been Darth Vader not that long ago. There were some people that Han would have happily avoided meeting for the duration of his life. Though for a man who'd been Darth Vader, Anakin here seemed oddly calm. Maybe Han just hadn't been around to see the explosions.

One of the astromech droids, a blue and white R2 unit, lit up and started beeping as Anakin joined Han next to the ship. The scar-faced man managed another smile as he put a hand on top of the droid, which started beeping and whirring even faster as Han clambered up onto the ship. “Good to see you too, Artoo.”

Han rolled his eyes and started pushing buttons in the cockpit once it opened. Lights blinked on at once. “Huh. Strange place to keep a working ship. Shall we bring the droid up?”

Anakin looked up and nodded. Han flashed a grin as he hopped down. “All yours, sir. Try not to crash into anything.”

The smile that split the scars apart for a moment seemed more sardonic than the others had. “I used to be a podracer, remember. I'm good at not crashing into things.”

 

“We'll need to talk to Obi-Wan at some point.”

Shmi nodded, arms folded as if she was trying to give herself a hug. “I'm not sure how ready Anakin is to forgive him, but it would help if Obi-Wan stopped goading him.”

Padme nodded, pacing around the table with a hand to her chin. “I'm not sure what to do about him. It was easy enough to cajole him onto a ship, but I think seeing Anakin in the flesh was too much. There's... a lot of resentment there. Anakin did... he did take the Jedi Order apart. Obi-Wan's got his own grief to deal with, and that's setting Mustafar aside.”

“He sounded really upset when we spoke to him,” Luke piped up. Padme frowned as she stopped pacing to look at the children, who sat next to each other, holding hands.

Leia nodded. “He said he couldn't kill Father, and then people just kept on dying.”

Padme winced. “Even Tatooine heard the stories about Vader.”

“Of course.” Shmi's soft comment made Padme start. “I imagine he feels responsible. He trained Anakin, didn't he?”

Padme nodded. “And Obi-Wan lost his Master shortly after meeting Anakin, so that relationship didn't start on the best of foundations.” She had to stop speaking to let out the sigh that this mess demanded of her. “It's easy to say that everyone made mistakes and everyone got hurt, but -”

Something whooshed past the window. She jumped. Shmi started out of her seat and turned to look behind her. A yellow shape flashed by again, further away than she'd thought from the sound, but close enough that whoever was flying the thing was taking a risk.

It was the old yellow starfighter that Breha had found at an auction and brought back, on the basis that it reminded her of Anakin and she'd thought Padme might like to have it around. Who'd be flying the old thing? An astromech droid sat in the back of the fighter, a blue and white one with a head that seemed dome-shaped from the side.

A smile broke on Padme's face as she watched the yellow fighter dip and dart in the air over the gardens.

“What is it, Mother?” Leia asked, tugging at Padme's sleeve as the children and Shmi joined her at the window.

She couldn't help but let the grin spread as she looked down at the confused twins. “It looks like Anakin's found his way back into the cockpit of a ship.”

“He did love podracing,” Shmi commented. Those races had been dangerous, Padme knew, but nonetheless Shmi was smiling as she looked out of the window.

Padme nodded and lifted her head. The fighter had gone in for a spin now, diving low before swooping up again. “Flying again will be good for him.”

The twins both beamed, fumbling for each other's hands as they watched Anakin fly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be seeing a lot more of Padme next time than we did in this chapter. If I'm feeling brave enough, I may even attempt Shmi's POV, which could be tricky. We'll see.


	10. The Phoenix and the Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There may be something in Anakin's statement that people sitting around and talking doesn't solve problems, but hopefully it's not a hard and fast rule of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of unsure about how well I handled Shmi's POV here, but I did finish NaNoWriMo in the space of twelve days and, while knowing that I can write that much in that time is pretty encouraging in its own way, it's also making me not want to open Scrivener again for a month.  
> Not that it's going to happen, because I get cranky if I don't write. Still, I'd like to mop up the loose ends so I don't have to concern myself with not having updated this thing for ages for a little while. Writing only a couple hundred a day is plenty by way of winding down.

Obi-Wan seemed so drained and lifeless in his chair that Padme was a step away from waving a hand in front of his face before he started into motion, gesturing towards the other chair in the room. “Please.”

She nodded and sat down, forcing her shoulders back. Queen and Senator. But that probably wasn't what Obi-Wan needed. Force, he needed the same thing the Jedi Order had failed to give Anakin, and Padme had only reckoned with teaching one person to work with emotion. Had that been Palpatine's offering to Anakin, the freedom of feeling?

This wasn't about Anakin. She cleared her throat. “Have you recovered your voice?”

“The chokehold only took the wind out of me. Nothing lasting.” He looked down at his hands, folded in the arms of his robe. Just as haggard under the greying hair as he'd seemed on Tatooine. “Though that act is...”

“It's a Dark Side skill. I know.” She pressed the thumb of her right hand into the palm of her left and took a deep breath. The prickling around her own neck wouldn't leave. “It'd be foolish to expect him to forget that part of his life so soon.”

“One does not simply... forget the Dark Side.” He shook his head. “He may still have some of Anakin's features, under those scars, but the Jedi I knew...”

“Are any of the Jedi you knew still alive, Obi-Wan?” The words jumped out just ahead of the rising heat in her cheeks. “The Order was lost. Can you count yourself a Jedi now?”

He lifted his head, but she looked down too quickly to see any shift in his expression. “I may be getting ahead of myself. I know there are... scars that are slower to heal than others.”

“I couldn't bring him back from the edge on Mustafar.” He spat the words out with a sudden bitter energy. Padme started and lifted her head as her brows drew together. “Why should anything have changed now?”

_Oh._ Padme shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “It may have been shock. He claims that Palpatine told him that he'd killed me.”

Obi-Wan's gasp drew the sound out of the room, leaving Padme alone with the forced moderation of her breathing. She lifted her gaze away from Obi-Wan's drained pallor. A pleasant enough room, but bare though it had been at his disposal since they'd first arrived from Tatooine. He'd lived with little enough there too, but now he wasn't required to maintain the state of his home by himself it seemed that there were a dozen little tools and basic practical appliances that just weren't there. No holo-images, no personal touches in a room as neutral and beige as the Jedi robes had been.

“You think the shock of finding out that the Emperor lied or was wrong about one thing was enough to startle him out of years of compliance?”

Padme winced. “Perhaps only into compliance to another set of orders. He never felt... truly free.” Deep breaths. Queen and Senator. Except she didn't need to be. Obi-Wan had been a friend once. The distance of the years couldn't tear this tower apart. “Slavery on Tatooine may not have given him the skills to deal with anything like freedom. Watching Shmi... she's learnt to be free, perhaps better than Anakin has, but she's still slow to make decisions, quick to notice trouble, quick to work her way out of it.” Her quick thinking on board the battle station ought to have taught Padme that. Shmi wouldn't have dealt with military force of that nature before, and that only left her captors. Another deep breath. “I'm... largely speculating here... but I think Anakin's giving in to Palpatine comes from much deeper-rooted issues than a need for power.”

“Some things are deep enough in a person that no one can force them out.”

“Like your determination to believe that once fallen is always lost, it appears.”

Obi-Wan's head dropped. Padme bit her lip. This wasn't about Anakin, even if it was more difficult than anticipated to have the conversation without pulling Anakin into it. “We both failed on Mustafar. I want to fix that mistake. To do it alone... that was too much.” Deep breaths. She folded her hands in her lap. “I looked for the people who knew him best. His mother... and you. By all rights you should be among the best placed to know what would help him, and yet...”

An attempt at a laugh forced itself through Obi-Wan's throat. “You've seen what he thinks of me now.”

“I can imagine you would also take offence to having your limbs sliced off by a man whom you thought of as a brother and left to burn.” The words weren't meant to be so sardonic. Still, Obi-Wan didn't seem to rise to it, so she pressed on before the words dredged up some sandstorm of guilt. “As I said to Anakin yesterday, few people mean to cause tragedy, but most people end up hurting someone else inadvertently.” She had more to say, but the words caught in her throat. The battle station, their arthritic duel on the bridge... “Sometimes in the belief that they'll prevent a greater loss. The Republic and its institutions failed Anakin, so he became Palpatine's right hand in the belief that an Empire would be more effective. He became the face of a horror most of us never imagined before the Clone Wars began, so you... you thought it'd be kinder to the galaxy to put an end to him.” And perhaps to finish the task that had been left incomplete on Mustafar. The Jedi were supposed to oppose the Dark Side, the Sith, and to leave Anakin – Darth Vader, then – alive would count as a failure to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

And why had Obi-Wan been unable to cut Anakin down there on the bank of the lava river, if not for love – attachment – that the Order had discouraged? Perhaps she was letting her mind run too free with speculations, simply because they made sense. Then again, maybe sense was all she needed to find in the situation. Had the fight been half as bitter with mutual betrayal as she tended to imagine it...

Bundled in his oversized robe and looking like a starving child, Obi-Wan sat still as stone. Padme couldn't find any more words that didn't seem primed to make her choke, so she waited, one thumb painting a circle on the palm of her other hand.

With a short exhalation, Obi-Wan started into motion, leaning forward to fix a newly bright gaze on Padme. “What justice can there be for him if we welcome him back?”

She sighed and folded her hands flat in her lap. “I'm not sure I want to be the one to mete out whatever might be considered justice for what he's done.”

Obi-Wan sat back, brows drawing together, but something in the set of his face held his expression just short of a frown. Padme pressed on, gaze falling so she wasn't looking Obi-Wan in the eyes. “The regret and pain he'll be living with from now on might be punishment enough, and in any case, even without justice, bringing him home means there'll be no new horrors. That has to be a good thing.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. He seemed to shudder, but with his robe folding around him so loosely it was hard to say for sure. “He still turns to the Dark Side under pressure. You saw that yourself.”

She had to sigh, but she could force a smile around it. “We're bringing him home. Perhaps we haven't brought him all the way back yet. But you don't get to your destination without going on a journey.”

 

Reading Ani's expression under the scars wasn't easy, but his head drooped more and more as Shmi explained where she'd been since the Tusken Raiders had kidnapped her. Half a minute after she finished her story, he let out a ragged sigh. “If I'd been there sooner...”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Life doesn't bend for what ifs.” Would that it did. What if Anakin had been set free sooner, what if he'd not fallen into the clutches of a man as wily as Chancellor Palpatine, what if Shmi had been able to leave Tatooine with him, what if, what if... What if she couldn't help him back to the man he'd been when Padme Amidala had loved him?

No, that was enough. And Padme had to love him still, or she'd hardly have gone to the Outer Rim and back just to find Shmi to help her. He folded in on himself, like a child again. He hadn't learnt to be free. She'd not been free that long, all told, not next to the years of slavery, but Ani... sweet Force, that suit that he'd been trapped in was just another slave transmitter. How many had he gone through in his life since he'd left Tatooine?

He lifted his head. The blue eyes still shone between the burns, though with a sorrowful glitter. “The scars... did they heal?”

“Most of them. I still have a small bald patch behind one ear.” She reached forward to put a hand on his. He still shivered at every touch. Under that armour... She didn't know for sure, but it hadn't looked like he'd be able to feel much through the heavy suit.

“I wanted to come back and help you.” His voice caught on something intangible in his throat. “Help all the slaves. But the Jedi... they didn't care.”

Shmi blinked away the itch in her eyes and sighed. “The Emperor said that he'd be able to fix the flaws of Republic, didn't he?”

“But he lied too.”

The words hissed out as Ani looked up, eyes widening as far as they could between raw scars. Would he ever trust a doctor enough to do anything about the seared skin? She hadn't seen him since he was nine years old, and now his body, though his own, was broken and so deeply scarred that he couldn't smile without pain.

For someone raised in the relative comfort of the Mid Rim, Padme had been forged from durasteel, to take on this task. “The world isn't... as simple as it would appear. Someone can claim to be fixing a problem without truly meaning to make it better.” Anakin with his strength in the Force, the power that had stunned even the seasoned Jedi Master who'd come to their house, wouldn't be satisfied to step aside from a world like that. It'd be easier on him, to leave the fighting behind. But nothing would be solved that way. “Padme wants you home safe, and so do I. And Force knows we can try.” She forced a smile. They could be in the process of bringing him home – saving him – but they weren't there yet. He still turned to the Dark Side under pressure. That was a response he didn't need. “The Emperor... he was after power.”

Ani didn't seem to register the last few words. His spine bowed until his gaze was turned on the floor again. “After what I did... I failed the Republic. I failed Padme. I couldn't save her. I couldn't save you.”

Shmi's smile broke apart for a moment. “Maybe... maybe not.”

“If I'm going to be punished for what I did...” His voice rose to an urgent half-cry as he shrunk together. “The Order, the Separatists, everyone I've...”

Her thumb moved in a smooth circle over his hand, round and round in regular sweeps. “That might be justice, but it's not justice many people want to deliver.”

“But without justice... Obi-Wan won't forgive easily.” Hushed again now. Those wild swings in his voice, dear Force, they spoke to a heart divided. Saving Anakin Skywalker meant helping him build bridges first between all the broken pieces of the boy she'd raised.

“Is forgiveness what you need, Ani?” She could ask that question of Padme with less shaking nerves making her voice feeble. But Ani, she wasn't so sure about. The life he'd led for the last ten years hadn't held much warmth. He shuddered. Shivers racked a still weak figure learning to work without a life support machine bound to it. That doctor she'd punched on the Empire's battle station had earnt almost as many quiet curses in the night as the Emperor had.

“I don't know.” He whispered the words in a gabble that Shmi could barely make out. “I don't know.” The shivers rose as he straightened his back, but he kept speaking, forcing words through a throat that sounded more and more tight. “After Mustafar... after what he said...”

That wasn't anger in his voice. Shmi held her peace.

“He told me that he loved me.” His gaze was distant. Perhaps he wasn't speaking to her anymore. “So did Padme, and she came back for me... he came back to kill me.”

Then he shook his head. _What's going through your mind, my Ani?_ She held quiet, though her thumb kept tracing out a circle on his hand. Cliegg had told her at one point early in their life together that she tended to wait too long to express a preference, that she was reluctant to make her own choices. The longer she'd been free, the easier making decisions had become. Ani had never been free enough to learn. Perhaps leaving him to make this choice on his own, however long that took, was the only way to teach him to do so.

“I need to talk to him.”

Shmi started. Anakin turned his head. His mouth moved, but he couldn't form the sounds. He took a deep breath and tried again before Shmi had the presence of mind to answer him. “We won't... nothing will change if we stay away from each other.”

“You know that could be a tense conversation.”

Though his eyes were feverish, he gave a fervent nod. “I'll... I'll try.” He still wheezed a little when he spoke too fast. He still carried a little of the Emperor's shadow.

But the brightest flames had been a mere spark at some point. They just needed time and fuel to grow. Shmi nodded. “I think Padme was speaking to him. Do you want me to find them?”

A smile flickered between his scars. “Please.”

 

Obi-Wan held his peace for some time as Padme walked him around the tower, mostly in case he thought of anything else to say with regards to his own failure, though under the pretence of being in search of someone who remembered the Clone Wars the way they'd been known before Palpatine's propaganda had twisted the story so far out of shape that she hadn't recognised it. Obi-Wan's isolation couldn't have been good for his mind, and someone who remembered the war that had come to define Obi-Wan's life could well have been what was needed for him to feel a little more at home. “I believe one of Bail's aides worked with the Mud-Jumpers on Mimban. Engineering assistant, I think.” The words spilled over into Obi-Wan's silence, but if he shut himself off, that was all her hard work come to nothing. She had to keep him grounded. “Rarely talks about it – long and dreary campaign, I heard.”

Still nothing. His eyes were half-glazed.

“Padme.”

She turned at the call, frowning for a moment before she saw who was hurrying along the corridor to catch her. “Shmi. How is Anakin?”

“He is...” Shmi shrugged, though she smiled at the same time. “... still a way from a full recovery. But he seems to be managing as well as can be expected. He'd like to speak to Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan turned, arms drawing in towards his chest. “What about?”

Shmi shrugged again. “He's not happy with the distance between you.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “After his outburst yesterday...”

“He's not happy about that either. He's stated that he'll try to avoid doing that again.”

Padme covered her mouth for a moment so she could get her smile under control – it wouldn't go appreciated by everyone in the present company, under the circumstances. “If the pair of you can conduct conversation that doesn't involve needling or otherwise attacking each other, that certainly wouldn't hurt. I'd hate to force you to it, though.”

Perhaps a disingenuous statement, given that she'd been the one to drag him off Tatooine – and threatened force if he'd refused, though with him standing half a head taller than her it might have been a rather empty threat. She couldn't have dragged him anywhere he didn't want to be dragged, and he doubtless knew it.

Air caught in her throat, silencing any further thought that might have given itself to speech. If that threat had so little weight, it hadn't been the reason Obi-Wan had agreed to join her and Shmi. What had made him cease to object? Luke's wonder at the lightsaber that had once belonged to Anakin, Leia's insistence that Obi-Wan should have been able to save Anakin again...

Ah. Tasks left unfinished. It always came back to the same thing.

“I'll speak to him.” He lifted his head. Level voice, calm as stone, but not so cold. Perhaps that was progress? She didn't feel confident enough to say. She'd grown careless over the years. The urgency of the Rebel Alliance's work had made the nuances of politics and people slip through her fingers. Obi-Wan shrugged as if to work out an ache in his shoulders and nodded to Shmi. “Lead the way.”

Padme took a deep breath and followed behind Obi-Wan as Shmi turned to lead him back to wherever she'd left Anakin. If this went well, it could be a big step forward in teaching Anakin to interact with people again. To heal a breach with his old Master, to forge something stronger out of the crumbling methods of the Jedi Order, that would be progress.

Then again, it could go horribly wrong too.

 

The ghost of his mother's touch preoccupied him for long enough that until the familiar Force presence stood outside the door, he was calm. But people were outside, people he'd betrayed, people who weren't about to let him forget it – _do I even deserve to forget it_ – and Obi-Wan... he could have killed Obi-Wan only yesterday.

The door opened. Shmi looked in first and smiled. “Would you prefer to have this conversation in private?”

“Is that -” Obi-Wan muttered, but someone beyond the open door shushed him. Padme. He looked at Shmi and nodded. Was he shaking? It wasn't that cold.

Nervousness, though, that could make you shake. Shmi held her smile as she stepped back and gestured for Obi-Wan to move forward. “Good luck to the pair of you.”

Padme appeared in the doorway behind Obi-Wan to flash a smile, before drawing the door shut. Anakin looked at Obi-Wan, at the thin and greying figure of the Jedi Knight who'd once been his Master –

No chains, no cages. No Masters either. He took a deep breath as Obi-Wan sat down. “I'm... I'm sorry.” He could speak louder than that. His voice hadn't always been a feeble whisper. The sandstorm shivered in the back of his mind, the scraping conflict of two Force presences so at odds with each other... so much burnt ground between them. Was that a shiver? “I shouldn't have... shouldn't have tried to choke you.”

“At least you stopped once you caught yourself.” Obi-Wan let out a gusting sigh. He seemed so... tired. What of? Tatooine's heat? The sandstorm hissed. No, none of that.

He had his voice, they were alone. Shmi and Padme weren't waiting in the corners of the room, the children were nowhere around. They'd still hear about it if he did anything wrong. No mask to hide behind here. But the mask had hurt. “How have you been?”

Obi-Wan flinched, lifting his head. The angry buzz of a darkening presence in the Force made the sandstorm rise again. _Enough._ He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He could weather this. He had to. For his mother, Padme, the twins...

Leia's determination, Luke's gentleness. So much like their mother.

“Tatooine is a rough place.” Was that judgement in Obi-Wan's voice?

Yes, but not of him. He took a deep breath as he opened his eyes. Obi-Wan's gaze had shifted aside. How long before either of them could look each other in the eyes? Mustafar... he blinked away the vision, the memory. Too much pain, and it had led him to Cylo's operating table, to the suit. No chains, no cages. No chains, no cages, and that meant he had to stay out of them. Padme couldn't protect him from everything, neither would Obi-Wan.

_I loved you, but I couldn't save you._

“Still, I got by.” Obi-Wan sighed and folded his arms together. “The locals were rather wary of me for some time. The Jedi were myths out there. It had its... conveniences, but it didn't encourage me as to the fate of the Order.”

He forced himself to nod. Maybe the Jedi Order had meant well. They'd failed. But if the Republic that Padme had believed in had been flawed the way she'd suggested...

What had Sidious done to the galaxy?

“I... I suppose it might seem trite to ask how you've been.” He spat the words out. Anakin flinched. Obi-Wan frowned at the motion, then shook his head. “The stories reached even the Outer Rim eventually. But I imagine you would tell a different story.”

He bit together, looked down. Salt water stung against the burn scars. He couldn't let the lump in his throat rise to choke him. Justice, maybe. Just barely. “It may not be worth much.” The words had to come from somewhere, but they spun in his head without sense. How did you talk to a man who'd once held the chains?

No chains, no cages. They didn't matter anymore. Shmi had learnt to be free. He could learn. He could speak. He could tell his version of the story. Even if it wasn't worth much. “To be Darth Vader... it was isolated.” Obi-Wan had never listened when Anakin was upset. Too close when he needed space, too far away when he needed help.

But he had to reach out. He couldn't replace the chains and cages with an empty desert. “Behind the mask... I was hardly any different to a droid.” A sentient possession rather than a person, the same thing he'd been on Tatooine, the same thing he'd been to the Republic and the Jedi Order. Orders, orders, no friendly ear. The words hissed with the bitterness of a storm – not the sandstorm, though. Icicle fury running with the wind.

How many different storms could there be? Obi-Wan's frown deepened. Something glittered in the Force like eyes tearing up.

“Another form of slavery?”

Anakin had a reply ready to voice and then the sudden rise in Obi-Wan's voice made him freeze with the words half-formed in his mouth. Pity?

He lowered his gaze, took a deep breath, nodded as he looked up again. The words were frozen now, stuck in his throat and he couldn't speak past them.

Obi-Wan sighed. “I... I don't think I ever understood that properly. We failed you in your Padawan years, Anakin.” He looked aside, sighed again. _We_ – the Jedi. He'd been free with them in no more than name. Hissing winds laden with sand scraped at the back of his mind. No. What he'd already done – that was enough. Just words now. The Force glowed red hot for a moment, but it mellowed as he forced the air into fragile lungs. Raw and pained, but getting stronger. “Perhaps Jedi training wasn't the best way for you.”

“So Master Yoda was right.”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Perhaps... not for the right reasons.” He was a quiet presence in the Force, a mild spring meadow. Meanwhile, the storms still spun in Anakin's head. Silence settled. He still struggled to form the words, to string them together. Obi-Wan shook himself. He still sat back in his chair, the greatest distance he could be from Anakin in this small room.

But he wasn't speaking with the cold disregard that he had before. Anakin took a deep breath. Burnt ground, burnt bridges. Someone had to start putting them back together, and Padme and Shmi had shown him how to. “How did you cope after... after Mustafar?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's another three chapters to go, and it's not all relaxed domestic fluff. In fact, the stuff that is not relaxed domestic fluff is going to start happening next chapter. I'll leave you speculate what shape of trouble that's going to be.


	11. Flash Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems the Empire isn't quite done with its Dragon yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is very much a case of 'I'm not happy with it but it needs to go away so I can stop thinking about it'. This thing's been a work in progress for weeks, and I only got it done by setting myself timed writing sessions. Romance repulsion bit down hard towards the end of the school term, and of course that makes it impossible to write Padme and Anakin even talking to each other, and then the entire thing just goes down the pipe. Then there's the fact that the school term only ended this Friday and I am Tired.  
> So yeah. I'm not impressed with myself, but it sets things up more or less where they need to be for the next chapter, and right now that is going to have to do.

“They no longer seem to wish to murder each other on sight, at least?”

“Murder is not generally the first course of action that occurs to Obi-Wan, at least, and if it's the first that occurs to Anakin, that's the product of years of servitude to the Emperor,” Padme retorted. “But you're correct. They seem to have overcome the worst of their differences.”

Bail nodded. Though he kept pace with Padme's shorter strides without effort, he seemed distant, mind elsewhere. Something about the most recent communiqué from Coruscant must have troubled him more than he'd acknowledged thus far.

The sooner Padme could get back into field work with the Alliance, the safer she'd be. And the safer the Organa household would be. Still, she had Anakin to worry about. Dragging him straight back into a war zone was not advisable, and for all that Shmi adapted quickly, something about leaving her to her chances in a world so deeply unfamiliar to her put an uneasy quiver into Padme's chest. New environs could kill some – not humans, they'd not have held onto control of the old Republic for long without the ability or technology to adapt in short order – but nonetheless, the shock of unfamiliar surroundings wasn't pleasant.

Her mind was running in a circle. She needed time away from politics.

“I should return to the legalities. Every day there's more to do.”

“I regret that I can't offer any assistance.”

“We all have our own tasks.” Bail stopped at the door and lifted a hand. “Enjoy your evening.”

She nodded as he turned and started back down the corridor. The last time any legal proposition had borne her fingerprints, it'd been used to tar her name after the galaxy believed her dead. Not that the fact had anything to do with the reasons she couldn't help Bail with his current workload. She put a hand on the door and took a moment to breathe in deep to steady herself before opening the door.

Three steps in, Luke ran into her, grinning from ear to ear, and throwing his arms around her waist. A startled smile broke across her face. “Hello, Luke.”

Anakin and Shmi looked up. One or the other of them had managed to scrounge up a Dejarik board from somewhere – perhaps with some tinkering on Anakin's part; how much of his mechanical knowledge had he retained over the last ten years? How much had he needed to use it? – and a couple of the beasts were in the midst of a scrap now. Leia sat to Shmi's side, staring at the board as if the pieces would give up a secret of the game if she glared at them hard enough. Shmi smiled. A flicker in Anakin's expression might have been a smile, but they were still fleeting from him. “You look tired. Sit down.”

Padme nodded and joined Anakin on the couch, pulling Luke onto her lap. “I imagine it's been a while since you last played this.”

He nodded. “I remember... more than I thought I would.”

“They play really well,” Leia announced, glancing up from the board for a moment before turning her attention back to her silent scrutiny of possible moves.

Luke wriggled around in Padme's lap, looking up with a grin as his hair fell back from his face. “Father fixed the board when they found it. It flickered too much at first, but he did something with the wires and now it works.”

Anakin glanced across at his son with another flickering smile. The twins had been quick to accept him, scarred and defeated as he was. And Anakin... well, he'd given so much in the name of protecting the twins. For them to be safe now would justify leaving ten years of devotion behind. Ill-advised devotion it had been, but then, Padme could hardly complain. She'd been devoted to the Republic's politics, to the ideal of peace protected by the Jedi Order that had failed Anakin. There might have been an argument of morality to make, the costs of their failure with different weight, but that felt wrong in her core. Dishonest.

Their failings varied, but they were so intertwined. If one of them was to atone for more than the most trifling missteps, so was the other.

Curious thoughts to have over a Dejarik table with a happy child in her lap and the rest of the family watching the game with intent delight.

Shmi sat back with a soft smile. “You win this one.”

“You didn't make it easy,” Anakin demurred as the pieces flickered out of their temporary existence on the board.

Padme smiled and shifted Luke's weight in her lap. He looked up at her and frowned as his hair fell away from his face, displeased with the adjustments.

A soft patter sounded from the door. Anakin started. Shmi frowned as Padme sighed. “Come in.”

The door creaked open to admit a pallid Breha. Frowning, Padme moved Luke onto the couch and stood up. “Breha. You seem worried.”

The Queen of Alderaan nodded and folded her hands together in front of her chest, taking a deep breath. “We just received a communiqué from Coruscant. The Emperor's issued a statement about the vanishing of his apprentice.”

She heard Anakin hiss behind her. Shmi and the children were here. He had to stay calm a little longer. “Yes?”

Breha's gaze fell. “He's called it a political manoeuvre by separatist forces, and one that he intends to punish. He's turning as much Imperial fire as he can gather on the planet that he believes most likely to be responsible for the disappearance.”

Her own heart beat too loud in her ears now to listen for any greater sign of distress from the twins, or Anakin. “Has he... stated where he thinks that is?”

Breha nodded, eyelids falling shut. “There's only one place he believes there might still be anyone interested in trying anything of the sort. Naboo.”

 

He wanted to put an end to the place where Anakin had first heard the soft whisper of a breeze that had given him hope he could find something good in life. Something that didn't hurt the way his cages had.

No chains, no cages. No. Palpatine couldn't do this. All the power of the Empire – that station wasn't finished yet, it wasn't functional. But that scientist, Erso... That station could put an end to a planet, if it worked as intended. How far from completion? How much already worked as intended?

Naboo, his haven. A place he'd found solace, however short-lived. However fragile. A place he thought he'd lost, and if the fourth slave master thought to take that from him – no. No chains, no cages. No masters from the blood-tinted places of the past. Was it past? Had enough time passed that the place so soft and good to him had –

“Anakin.”

His mother's voice. He was on his feet. A small hand reached for his. Luke. As he looked down, Leia joined her brother, serious but hopeful.

He looked up, at Shmi, at Padme.

 

She could trust him more than that now, but she found her jaw clenching as she watched him start upright. Luke went to take Anakin's hand at once; Leia joined him heartbeats later.

Padme crossed the space between them as he watched her. “Anakin, whatever he's planning... We will try to stop it.”

His hands caught her arms, tightening before he stopped himself, just before his grip became painful. He shook his head as the children stepped back. She looked up and willed herself to be steady. Queen and Senator. But Anakin had little cause to trust either.

“If any of the station's weaponry is ready, Naboo may be lost unless we can prevent the attack.” The words came fast and breathy, thin sighs on a desert breeze. Vader had been an imposing figure, implacable doom, and yet here he was only weeks away from the Emperor's grip. “If I don't turn myself in...”

Padme shook her head. Shmi stepped forward, behind Leia to stand just within Anakin's field of vision. He lifted his head. The two women spoke in unison.

 

“No.”

Padme's hands clutched onto his arms, a mirror of his protective hold on her. “We can defeat this another way, Anakin. You don't have to go back.”

No chains, no cages. Rattling the bars was always dangerous. Air hissed through his teeth. His lungs worked now – replacements grown in a laboratory. His own flesh from a doctor's desk. Cylo was dead. He'd taken the man's _guarantee_ of immortality out himself. Taken it, and killed the man in cold blood – Cylo had nothing to do with this. His head dropped as he pulled in a deep breath.

“You're free to fight him now, Ani.” She could only reach out a hand over Leia's head, but Shmi was still calm. “You left the Empire behind. Do you want to go back?”

He shook his head before he heard the question. No chains, no cages, no masters.

Did he have to put an end to –

No. Obi-Wan he could talk to. The rest of the Jedi were gone. Heat flared in his chest, the rising monster, the burning of a past under Tatooine's twin suns. All the softness baked out of him, and what the desert hadn't taken...

Luke, Leia. His children. Still soft.

He took another deep breath. It sounded too much like Cylo's cage, like the cage that had made him incapable of running far enough to escape. He was still weak. Still half robotics, and the other half was scarred flesh broken and painful, or else too new to know how to work. But nothing controlled his breath now. No mask to tear sound or silence from his throat. “Then I'll fight.”

 

Padme winced. She could only imagine what Breha was thinking. Something feverish lit up in Anakin's eyes as the words sped up. “I can still fly a fighter. I know the fleet, I know the station, I know their strategies. If Naboo is under attack because I -”

She nodded, holding back a sigh of relief. “I'm the connection there, Ani. I'll be there whatever the Alliance decides to do.”

Breha cleared her throat. Padme turned in Anakin's grip as he lifted his head.

“If the communiqué represents the Emperor's plans, this may be a chance to deal a significant blow to the Imperial fleet.” She'd lifted her gaze now. This was territory that Queen Breha Organa knew how to manage. “The Alliance may consider sending a force to intercept any attack on the planet. At this point it would be risky to send anyone to the planet -”

“Perhaps it's time for me to go back.”

Luke and Leia started, looking up at Padme with wide eyes. She flashed a smile down at the pair before looking back to Breha. “That is, if we have time. How long does the Emperor plan to take about this plan of his?”

“It'll take a few days yet to assemble the fleet -”

“Unless the battle station's operational, it'll take longer to set up for attack,” Anakin cut in. “But I can't say for sure. It's been badly delayed, but there may have been tests conducted while I was... needed in other places.”

Best not to ask what other places those might have been. “We have a lot of spy reports. I don't know how informative they are. We'll have to find a summative report before we leave. Someone on Dantooine should be able to scan the archives.”

Had he really said that he'd fight? Yes, he could fly a fighter, but he'd only been around the palace. How did that compare to a genuine dogfight? She'd never learnt to love flying the way he had. And she'd done what she could to save him, walked right into the gaping maw of the Empire –

But she'd come to realise that other people giving him orders had always been his downfall, too. So many cruel thoughts that she'd forced herself to look in the eye over the past week. Just as she'd said to Obi-Wan, Anakin had never felt truly free, and there she was, thinking of reasons to order him to stay here.

 

Padme struggled to speak for a moment. Her gaze fell as her head turned, back to face him.

Palpatine had been Senator when she was Queen. She knew what he could do. What he would do, given a chance. Anakin held his breath for a moment, before complaining muscles and tearing scars demanded oxygen. No chains, no cages. If Palpatine was going to attack the only place he'd been happy – that sanctuary – and Padme was about to tell him to stay back – she'd already...

“You know that it'll be dangerous.” She sighed. Still looking down. But her gaze rose as a smile, soft at first but growing bolder – growing into the smile of a Queen and Senator – crept onto her face. “Anything you want to tell the Alliance will be of great help, but we don't have much time. We'll need to start organising at once.”

He nodded. The scar tissue webbed over his cheeks began to sting, but he ignored it. Not important.

 

Luke turned and pattered off as the conversation lulled. Shmi looked after him and folded her arms. Padme turned away from Anakin to watch Luke run into his bedroom. Had that been a smile of relief from Anakin? It hadn't flickered the way most of his did, and the scars hadn't faded. It must have stung.

He was back in short order, carrying a metallic cylinder – the lightsaber he'd retrieved from Obi-Wan's house on Tatooine. She glanced up at Anakin, searching for expression between the scars. Did he recognise it?

He let go of her and turned as Luke stepped closer and held out the lightsaber.

Anakin's blue eyes – the eyes that Luke had inherited – widened between the rough, reddened skin as he reached a hand out. His mouth opened, but he stuttered.

“Obi-Wan had it in his house on Tatooine, and I found it while Mother was telling him to come with us.” Luke smiled up at his father. “He's been teaching me to use it, with the little flying training remote thing, but it's yours, so I think you should have it back.”

The smile that broke on Anakin's face made Padme wince at the mere thought of how much the scars must have stung, but he accepted the lightsaber from Luke's grasp and, stepping back from the others, activated the blade.

 

 _This weapon is your life_.

He'd not seen it since Mustafar, facing the third slave master – no, not that any longer – Obi-Wan Kenobi on a river of lava.

He'd used it for Jedi ends for years, and then for unpardonable murder. The younglings at the Temple, the Separatist leaders – they'd been cruel, pawns of Sidious, but he'd cut them down in cold blood – and he'd tried to cut down Obi-Wan, too.

But now his son had learnt to use the lightsaber, a weapon most had forgotten now that the Jedi were gone – how quickly things faded. His son had picked up this lightsaber. Its hum met his heartbeat in a beat that felt natural, _right_.

 _This weapon is your life._ Now the weapon had been turned to better ends. His life could be turned to something better than what Sidious had wanted him to be.

No chains, no cages. He deactivated the blade and turned to Padme. “Where do we start?”

She smiled, looking down at the floor. “We should let Breha explain what else she knows. This communiqué will have reached Dantooine now. Everything's going to happen quickly. And the twins stay home this time.”

Leia rolled her eyes. Luke gave her a petulant look as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.

The belt he wore had no place for a lightsaber to clip. He'd have to fix that. He turned to Breha, looking over Padme and Shmi as the children collapsed back into one of the couches. “I understand.”

 

Deployment, strategy, risk assessment, she could do all of those things, but the pace that this attack demanded made Padme's head spin even so.

“It might be better if I stay here,” Shmi murmured, standing aside with her arms folded as if she didn't dare take a seat across the cluttered table. “I don't think I'll be helpful in an attack like this.”  
“I understand.” Padme looked up and forced a smile. It was getting harder to make them genuine the longer she remained awake. She had to sleep on the trip out or she'd have none until the Alliance intervention was completed or she lost her life. “If this fails, it's possible that Anakin and I won't return. Under those circumstances...”

Shmi nodded, gaze falling as she sighed. “Do you think... Ani...”

Padme pushed the clutter of files aside and sighed. “I'm not sure. I hope he'll manage. But I don't want to put him back in a place where he thinks his only option is to obey someone else's orders.”

Shmi managed a smile. “That might be enough.”

Padme nodded, gaze falling to the clutter. “We have to hope so.”

 

“So you're flying out?” Han asked as he bent over a stubborn patch of dirt on R2-D2's dome.

Anakin nodded. “Soon.”

“This one of those Alliance fights that never seem to get anywhere but still drive the Imps half the way to Bothan space?”

He hesitated for a moment, then tugged a wire loose to keep working on the engine beneath it. The journey was longer than this sort of ship was made for, but he didn't have many options. “It won't be.”

“If you need more pilots, the Falcon's got a few guns on her.”

He frowned and ducked out of the engine to look at Han, who straightened up and grinned with an expansive shrug. R2-D2 gave a series of high beeps in irritation at the interruption of his cleaning. “This whole rebellion doesn't seem to be too bad, and I don't trust anyone who's willing to build a battle station the size of a moon.” After a moment, he added, “And her ladyship's a persuasive woman.”

Her ladyship? Anakin nodded. “There may be room for you. I'm not... the one to speak to about that.”

“That's a shame. I came here with much the same enquiry.”

Scars twinged as his brow furrowed. He strode around the ship, hydrospanner still in hand. Obi-Wan had appeared in the hangar door. He gave a lopsided smile and shrugged as Anakin hesitated, unsure of what to say. “I'm not sure I'd manage flying a fighter too well, but Padme indicated there could be a landing party on the battle station.”

Anakin frowned. The scars twinged again, forcing him to let go of the tightening muscles in his face. “What?”

“It seems the Emperor may be planning to oversee the attack on Naboo himself.” Padme drifted up behind Obi-Wan, in staid flying fatigues and with a ration pack slung over one shoulder. “If that's the case, it might be necessary to deal with him to put an end to the attack.”

“The power of the Dark Side... blaster bolts will have no effect.”

“It takes a Jedi to fight a Sith.” No hint of doubt in her voice, in her face. “We have two.”

Han put his thumbs in his belt. “This is a big thing you've got planned, your worshipfulness.”

Padme nodded. “Are you interested in taking part, Captain Solo?”

Captain? That young? Han nodded. “Like I was saying a moment ago, I don't trust anyone who builds a weapon the size of a moon.”

She seemed to freeze the smile before it spread too far across her face. “I'm surprised you've not shown more resentment over the lack of payment.”

He shrugged, hands still around his belt. “Might have found something more valuable with your rebel folk, your highnessness.”

Padme nodded, stepping past Obi-Wan. “We'll rendezvous with the Alliance fleet in space surrounding Malastare before moving towards Naboo. We have Bothan spies tracking the Imperial forces congregating near the planet. The Senator for Naboo has submitted a plea for mercy, but the Emperor has not been seen on Coruscant since before the communiqué Breha received was sent. He may already be on his way to the station.”

 _It takes a Jedi to fight a Sith. And we have two._ That meant him and Obi-Wan – there was no one else left it could mean – well, Yoda, if he hadn't died in his exile on Dagobah sometime in the last ten years, and even then he was too far away to act. Did he deserve the title any longer? The lightsaber weighed against his hip, comforting now it didn't rest against the heavy suit and untreated scarring. The red lightsaber that he'd made once he'd folded into his place beneath the Emperor still lay in his room, locked in a box that he didn't dare look at. Which weapon was meant to be his life now?

He had to hope that it would be the one he chose. The one his family had given back to him. “You look ready to leave.”

She nodded. “We'll be going as soon as Obi-Wan has a ship to get on board.”

“There's space on the Falcon if you need it,” Han offered. “Not sure that helps if you're trying to board that station again, though. Don't reckon they'll be using the tractor beam in the middle of a fight.”

“That was how you came onboard?”

Padme looked up and chuckled at his bewilderment. “Yes. The hangar had few enough troopers in it that we managed to leave the ship undetected.”

He nodded. That was a time gone by. Forward, now. He wasn't going to lose Naboo when he'd just regained some glimmer of who he'd been. Who he should have become. “We'll find another way.” He lifted his head. Scars tugged and stung. Never mind. He'd been a general, the hero with no fear. “Let's go.”

 

Lights flickered in the sky outside Leia's window. They were too close and moved too fast to be stars.

Grandmother had tucked her in and told her a story from Tatooine about a child who'd gone to fetch water and found an injured lizard, and it was a nice story, but she wasn't sleepy. Mother and Father and Obi-Wan were going back to the battle station that looked like the jaw of a big monster in a dark cave. If the Alliance didn't win, Naboo would be broken. It wouldn't be Mother's home any longer.

She pushed the blanket off and jumped out of bed. The floor was only a little cold. She padded to the door and opened it with as little noise as she could, in case Grandmother was still awake. But she wasn't around, so Leia shut her door and moved on to Luke's.

He was sitting on his bed watching the sky through his window. “You couldn't sleep either?”

He shuddered and turned around, his eyes getting bigger. “No. I'm worried about Father.”

“Mother's there. She won't let him get himself killed.”

“They're going to be fighting Imps. That's dangerous. She might not be able to protect him.” He looked down at his feet, rocking back and forth.

Leia sighed and clambered onto the bed to sit next to Luke. “You remember all the stories Mother told us about him? And what Grandmother and Obi-Wan said? He was a hero.”

“And he has his lightsaber now. His real lightsaber, I mean. The blue one. Not the red one he used when he worked for the Emperor.”

Leia nodded and leaned in, putting one arm around Luke's shoulders. He put his arm around hers. Their heads bumped together as they looked out of the window at the lights in the sky moving away from Alderaan against the star-spotted sky.

“They're all going to be fine.” Leia nodded.

Luke turned to her and smiled, nodding along. “The Force will be with them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any attempt at dealing with Palpatine could be interesting whether Anakin manages to stick to Jedi ideals or not. He's caught between Palpatine's grasp just being a really bad place to be and 'revenge is not the Jedi way'. That's one issue I don't think Padme's planned for.


	12. Crossfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are many ways to deal with abuse of power by a monarch. Some are more drastic than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how long's it been since I updated this time, a month or more? I've lost track and I'm not checking so I don't upset myself. January, as per usual, was The Month of Getting Nothing Done, and there was extra bad stuff going on this year in particular, followed by a short period of forced lack of productivity at the start of February and some Internet shenanigans on my laptop that just kept delaying everything. Plus this is a hard chapter and I'm kind of worried that I've hit all the wrong notes. So that's as it is. But precisely because it's a hard chapter, I really don't want to go staring at it and second-guessing myself and editing it (or myself) to death, so I'm just hoping there aren't any major mistakes and going ahead because it's late and I can't be asked to deal with it any longer. The next chapter should be easier.

“This is your scoundrel. The hangar's wide open. You're good to come in.”

Padme blinked at the control panel, then lifted her gaze to the station that blotted out most of fighting. People snapped updates and warnings over the comm system, but the words blurred as she banked left. “On my way.”

“Two fighters on my tail.” Anakin's voice still stayed soft, whispering, but he spoke with more confidence now. Like the slave who'd so stubbornly told her that he was a person all those years back. “I need to lose them first. I'll be with you as soon as I can.”

“Please don't put yourself in danger, Ani.” She sighed and made for the slit in the side of the half-completed battle station. The Millennium Falcon had parked, and even as she swung in and settled the fighter down, no stormtroopers or other Imperial staff appeared from the shadows.

By the time she'd tugged her helmet off and jumped down from the cockpit, Han had appeared from somewhere, grinning like he'd just pulled off a heist on Coruscant itself. “Few shots as we were landing, the Imps evacuated. Heard on the comms that they thought it was just loose fighter fire and they'd deal with it once the attack was over.”

“They didn't see the freighter first?” she asked as she tugged at the tight braid of her running down her back. These suits weren't comfortable, but better a fighter suit designed for battle heat than any sort of gown when they were about to chase down the highest-ranking Imp on the station.

The grin broadened. “Didn't need to hit anything in particular, so I could fire before I was around the corner. They didn't have a chance.”

She nodded, jaw locking as she lost the words. She turned her head to look out at the empty space beyond the hangar, distant stars blotted out by occasional bursts of red and green as fighters flitted past. The hangar faced just wrong to see Naboo, that sparkling planet that she still thought of as home. Maybe one day she'd be able to go back and stay there, or at least stay there while she wasn't dealing with the politics of the galaxy. “Then we're just waiting for Anakin.”

Han nodded and spun on one heel to stand facing the gaping maw of the hangar, folding his arms. He was still a youth, barely of an age that the Alliance would have taken him as a pilot. He'd volunteered, yes, and he was a smuggler, he was used to playing fast and loose with his life. And Padme had risked her life for her people at a younger age yet.

But that hadn't been anyone's intention when she'd been elected. The Trade Federation shouldn't have blockaded Naboo, she shouldn't have had to besiege her own palace to stop them.

This had started as an innocent mission for the smuggler, too. Though it had turned into sneaking into Imperial territory early on, and _that_ part he hadn't volunteered for.

A minute of waiting stretched into some longer unit as she stared at the space just beyond the hangar's seal. Fighters darted past, but they were all the grey and dirtied colour bands of Alliance fighters or the sharp wings of Imperial TIEs, not Anakin's yellow fighter, until it was, speeding across their field of vision with an impaired TIE trailing after it. Both craft were spinning, though Anakin's fighter seemed under better control than the careening TIE with its burning wing.

“Does he do that a lot?” Han muttered under his breath. Padme rolled her eyes at his back. Han's freighter wouldn't handle that manner of rotation, so it might well have seemed daft, but that was established diversionary tactics. Although Anakin did seem more entertained by them than most fighter pilots were.

The yellow fighter swung back around, no TIE after it this time, and swooped into the hangar at a pace that made Padme start back to stand closer to her own fighter, out of the way, but it settled to the floor with no last-minute corrections. Han gave a begrudging nod and folded his arms.

“They're going down fast out there, but there are many of the TIE fighters and they just keep coming,” Anakin commented before he was even out of the cockpit, sparing a smile and an approving pat for R2 before jumping down. He wavered on his feet, one hand against the side of the ship as the cybernetics righted themselves, before straightening up. Something ghostly shimmered behind the scars across his face.

“I do hope that by 'they' you mean the Imps.” She couldn't make the words light. This was too serious a time for that.

He nodded. “The Alliance has... a good number of skilled pilots.”

“We picked people up from both sides of the Clone Wars. A lot of people were angry at having been used as pawns on the Separatist side, and accepting an empire proved too much for some from the Republic.”

Han rocked forward into the conversation, making a tendon twitch in Anakin's neck. “The old man's been looking for security footage in that little office we found last time. Might tell us where the Emperor's hanging around.”

“Then we just have to find a way there.” Padme lifted a hand to her chin.

“I can handle that.” Anakin's voice scraped out of his throat like the words had to be dragged out. The grinding roughness made Padme frown. “I was here long enough to learn my way around.”

“How?” Han waved a careless hand around the near-empty hangar. “The whole place is greyer than a Hutt's belly.”

Perhaps the comment that came to mind there was best avoided. Anakin shook his head – though it looked like a nervous twitch, small jerking movements back and forth in irregular rhythms as he glanced away across the hangar. “All the corridors have a code assigned according to a specific pattern. Rooms are indicated by a code based on their corridors. Even if many locations look similar, the nearest corner will give coordinates of a sort.”

Padme nodded. “We have to move quickly. This has to end soon. Before the fighters are overrun.”

“I see everyone's arrived.” Obi-Wan's dry comment preceded the man by a good ten paces. “The Emperor's in a large circular room with a dais of sorts raised to a window. It seems to be a command bridge, but the throne is out of place.”

“The Emperor demands it.” Anakin's voice seemed to strain. Was it just the pressure of being back on ground he'd last walked trapped in Cylo's cage, or was there something deeper putting stress on him? “The command bridge is one of the only circular rooms. We need to go up several floors.”

“That puts a lot of potential obstacles in our path.” Obi-Wan sighed and folded his arms inside his robe.

“Many of them can be bypassed.”

“You want me with you, or should I stay here and guard the ships?” Han asked, wrenching his gaze away from the firefight outside the hangar to look at Padme. “Not that I'm eager to stay out of harm's way, but Chewie might be a little... distinctive.”

“Where is he?”

“Still on the ship. One of the smuggling compartment lids got dented while we were flying in, and he set about fixing that while we waited for the twister to come in.”

“I see.” Where was he most useful? Smuggling demanded a different kind of stealth than what they were about to attempt, and he had a point about the Wookiee. But the Emperor himself... But if two Jedi and Padme's blaster weren't enough to deal with him, Han's presence was unlikely to add much. “Try to keep the hangar clear. I'll comm you if we need you elsewhere. It may be for the best that someone can get clear if this goes wrong.”

He nodded, looking around at the serious faces. “May the Force be with you. I'll see you on the other side of the fight.”

Padme nodded and looked from Obi-Wan to Anakin. Both men stood tense and ready. Both of them were out of practice, untrained, separated from the Jedi doctrine that had shaped their lives.

Perhaps that was for the best, at this point, after the way the Order had failed Anakin. “Let's go. Anakin, if you'd explain how to bypass the obstacles while we move.” Obstacles might well have meant stormtroopers, in this case. Not that she could be sure that was all they'd be faced with.

 

With the film of blood gone, the battle station seemed darker, drained of colour and half-full with broken life. There was something different in the way the Force moved here now. It had been a cold storm of shadows when he'd last been here. Now the place seemed... still cold, still cold. Cold like the bars of a cage, just as soulless. But there was so little _fury_ in this furnace.

“There are certain code phrases to indicate various degrees of clearance. The Death Squadron had certain phrases assigned to allow them immediate access to the highest ranking officer present.” His command. Chains tied to the wrists of a caged man. No chains, no cages. How had their chains fared now? Anakin took a deep breath, his step faltering for a moment.

“Does the Emperor count as an officer?” Padme asked, striding ahead to look around a corner before waving Anakin and Obi-Wan forward.

“He might. If nothing else the officers on board should be... persuadable.”

“The code phrases won't have changed in your absence?” Obi-Wan murmured, three paces behind.

The sandstorm hissed and settled in the same breath. “Unlikely. If the official story is that I was... taken against my will... the squadron should remain loyal.”

Only the best. The most ruthless enforcers of the Empire's iron fist. Selfless in their own way. Their lives were forfeit if they failed the Empire. Cages, cages, some more tangible than others. He'd been a cage around them. _How? The Empire was... Enough._ The sandstorm hissed like a cornered lizard in the back of his mind. This was all for another breeze, a more beautiful place, one without slaves and chains and cages and murder and all the ways he'd hurt her. Hurt Shmi. Hurt his children. His children. He should have given them a better world to grow up in than this. He should have been there. Been the father he'd never had. Not a commander of murderers.

“Anakin.”

Her soft whisper cut through the hard words in his head. “There are troopers coming. This might be a chance to attempt your plan.”

Old scars flared. The shackles hung around his wrists, open but so harsh against tender skin. But he forced himself forward, to the next corridor, standing ahead of Padme as the claps of armour against the cold greyness echoed closer. Obi-Wan shuffled forward to stand behind him. No more than a pair of stormtroopers.

They rounded the corner and halted in step with each other, blasters lifting.

“Intel from the final jury.” Wrong, wrong, the words were wrong in his mouth, his voice too soft for the sharp edges and explosions that the squadron he was imitating left in their wake. All his blame to take – they answered to no other.

They lowered their blasters. “You're out of uniform.”

“Desperate circumstances. My squad is in trouble.”

The troopers' helmets turned so they could look at each other. One tilted their head. “Didn't we hear a few days ago from Captain -” one muttered.

“We need to see the Emperor immediately.” Obi-Wan stepped forward, level with Anakin.

Mind tricks. The sandstorm hissed. It had to settle. He couldn't let it roar in his head again. He didn't need that rage. The troopers turned to look at Obi-Wan. “You need to see the Emperor immediately.”

“It is a matter of extreme urgency.” Obi-Wan used the same voice for mind tricks that he'd used to explain Anakin's slips in the katas.

“It is a matter of extreme urgency.”

Repeating and obeying orders was what stormtroopers did. How tight were the chains? How easy to shake off? Their armour wasn't sealed to their skin the way his had been. They could breathe without their helmets. Did it matter? A wrong-colour inversion of his image. What his image had been. What the Emperor needed him to be.

“You'll take us to him immediately.”

“We'll take you to him immediately.” One stormtrooper turned and lifted a hand to beckon them. “This way.”

Obi-Wan and Padme started forward at once. Anakin hesitated. Not long enough that they noticed. He hoped they didn't notice. This place was foreign. He'd never seen it this way before. Hadn't been able to. And it ached like home in his bones.

 

He didn't seem aware of it, but Anakin twitched like a cat on a hot roof the entire elevator ride up to the correct floor. Tapping fingers, clenching jaw, sideways jerks from the neck that made Obi-Wan look askance at his old Padawan. The greyscape made Padme's skin crawl, but Anakin's unease seemed to run right into the flesh. Had he felt that way about the place before she'd pulled him out, but been prevented from expressing it by the weight of the suit?

It occurred to her that it might be worth making note of the coordinates – if that was what Anakin had learnt to call them – of the corridors they moved through, but the stormtroopers set a quick pace and she couldn't do much but discern that the letters at the beginning of the sequence shifted from A to B before they arrived at a pair of sliding double doors where the stormtroopers stopped. One of them pressed a button on the panel to the side of the door, then turned their back to the wall. The other took up a similar position on the other side of the door.

Padme's fingers itched to find her blaster. But now wasn't the best time. It wouldn't take much hostility to put the troopers on high alert, and they weren't even in front of the Emperor yet. He couldn't be that much of a physical threat. He'd been disfigured by... something that had occurred when the Jedi had... they must have gone to arrest him. Anakin had told Mace Windu that he suspected Palpatine of being a Sith Lord, and the next thing Padme had heard, Order 66 was in motion and the Republic became the Empire. The doors slid open. Anakin stepped forward first, Obi-Wan and Padme herself a couple of steps behind and jogging to catch up as the doors shut behind them again.

Two red-clad guards stood either side of the door, in positions that would have put them back to back with the pair of stormtroopers had the wall not been present, but the room seemed empty. Anakin strode forward, into the centre of the room. Four pillars formed corners of a smaller space in the centre of the room, beyond which the control panels remained relegated, shadowed by a pair of overhanging walkways that seemed to run between rooms in the floor above.

Machines wheezed like the Dragon of the Empire had done. Rasping gusts in the sides of the rooms made her shiver.

A throne turned with the back to the door had been placed in front of the tremendous viewing window. It was too large and round-edged to belong to the station. Must have been instated for the Emperor's presence.

“What is it?” a voice snapped, crackling like paper in the dry air. Anakin flinched. Padme took a deep breath. The guards were still here. Still not time to reach for her blaster.

Obi-Wan glanced across at her. She shrugged. Anakin still twitched, mouth open but not even a soft whisper making it through his teeth. The longer the silence burned into her ears, the more he shook.

He'd volunteered. She hadn't been able to say no. Should she have? How much would this hurt?

Not her call to make. She cleared her throat. “Your attack on Naboo is misguided, Sheev. There are no accomplices to Vader's vanishing there.”

 _Vader_ made Anakin flinch. It was a slave name, he'd said, and dear Force how a slave name would hurt him now he was free of that cage.

Silence. Silence. Obi-Wan lifted a hand to his chin, covering his beard.

The throne began to turn, silent against the dead humming of the working station. Padme's breath skipped. Palpatine had been a friendly face when she was Queen, and yet for the clone army to have been prepared so early his preparations for taking control must have begun by then.

The Emperor sat draped in his black cape like shadows folded around him, yellow eyes in a pale, distorted face staring out like a krayt dragon in a cave. His lips parted into something that one might obtain if it were possible to take a smile in your hands and twist it. “Oh! You've brought him back to me.”

Something like a snarl tore free of Anakin's throat as his hand snapped to the lightsaber on his belt. “No. The cage is gone.”

“Is it?” The Emperor rose to his feet. “You must have received a great deal of medical attention, to be free of Cylo's handiwork. But not enough to undo the damage your failure incurred.”

 _Oh, that's cold. Greeting your once apprentice with a slap in the face._ But the Emperor was a Sith Lord. Kindness didn't seem apt to that manner of person. Obi-Wan had frozen, lids lowered as if he sought to hide his eyes from Palpatine but didn't dare move further than that. He'd brought his lightsaber too, although recalling his and Anakin's slow-moving duel the last time they'd been on this station, Padme had to question how much use that would be.

“And I see you brought your old friends, too.” Palpatine's gaze turned on Padme, glittering in the dim light. Red bolts flashed through the sky outside. She shuddered. The fleet could go down or be forced to pull away in the time it took to deal with Palpatine. And how did you deal with a Sith Lord whose rise to power had been, after all, legal? Below board and more suspicious than an unofficial spice shipment, but legal. A Sith Lord wouldn't let mere politics hamper him. “One of them seems to have been... brought back from the dead.”

She gritted her teeth. Obi-Wan sighed. “Did you not notice that you'd failed to kill her, Sidious? I felt your presence around the ship vanish as soon as we went back into hyperspace.”

 

Naboo's breeze roared in his head, thunder cracking down as paradise found its anger. “ _You_ tried to kill her!”

He was so far away. The fourth slave master, second to last, last of those alive. Third slave master. Obi-Wan had rejected the word. Forgiveness could come later. Peace was enough for now. He bore down on Sidious' frail form already reaching for his lightsaber. The weapon that had been held at Sidious' throat when Anakin had first realised what the man was. The station hummed under his feet, cold machinery made to be a destructive corpse, the Force cold and simmering. No fury, no warmth, no _life_ , something corrupted and foul and _wrong_.

“So quick to believe the master who lied to you for so long?” Was that a smile? Right shape, wrong feeling.

“You lied longer.” Hard anger crept into his voice like shards of flint. His throat was still too weak. The cage had made him harder. Stronger. Except it hadn't – just the illusion of strength in a suit of armour fitted around him. He'd been left to rot inside it. “It was never about protecting me. About helping me.”

Not a smile now. It might never have been one. Naboo didn't get sandstorms, not the way Tatooine did. Rain lashed down instead, taking the dirt and dust down with it.

“Still so angry.” The words leapt off his tongue like it was still a surprise. Anakin stopped five paces away. Five of his shorter paces – these legs were the same length his flesh-and-bone ones had been. “I'm sure there's a place for you in the Empire still, but we will need to -”

“You will not get _Vader_ back.” His voice was too soft for the snarl, but the storm growled behind the words, rumbling thunder and threatening clouds and the calm surface of boiling motion.

Yellow eyes stared at him between folds of pallid, sickly flesh. Broken like he was. But Sidious wanted things to break.

A red blade appeared like the saber had been activated already inside the black robe.

 

Anakin's blue blade flashed into motion before Sidious raised his weapon, but Padme didn't dwell on it. There were still guards in the room. Blaster drawn and raised, she spun around. One shot, two shot. Both guards crumpled. She'd hit one in the arm – incapacitated, but not dead. She hesitated, lowering the blaster though it still shook in her tense grip. The incapacitated guard put their good hand to the wall, squirmed upright, tried to lift their pike. She lifted the blaster again and fired off another shot. The guard slid down the wall and didn't move again.

“Those are some of the Empire's best,” Obi-Wan muttered without looking back.

“Doesn't matter much if you fire fast enough.” She forced her gaze back to Anakin. He'd been exceptional with a lightsaber, once, but that was before the burns and lost limbs and years inside the suit of armour. And she had no idea what Sidious had been like.

The robe must have hampered his movements. He stabbed forward, had his blade knocked aside by Anakin's, tried again. Obi-Wan sighed and strode forward, spine unfolding as he tugged his lightsaber off his belt.

Sidious was first to notice the second Jedi moving towards. One gnarled hand – like the claw of some mutated bird of prey – lifted from the hilt. The air turned white-hot in lightning streaks across the room, just past Anakin and seeking Obi-Wan like self-steering missiles.

Obi-Wan's lightsaber swung up to catch the crackling lightning, but he had to lean forward against the pressure. Padme shuddered, then turned her gaze on Palpatine. He kept up the fight against Anakin, but the lightning seemed to be distracting him. As Obi-Wan failed to cave, he scowled and shook his hand, forcing a stronger blast of the unnatural lightning from his hand.

Perhaps she could distract him a little more. Blaster up, ready on the trigger, aim with care, and fire. Three shots in rapid succession. Then another two.

The red blade flickered, sending two bolts astray. The third hissed through the dark robe. Anakin lunged forward, pushing Sidious back, and the next two bolts caught the Sith Lord sharp in the side.

The Emperor gasped and bent double. The close-lipped smile was bitter. But that was as much as she could have hoped for. The lightning ceased to crackle. Obi-Wan straightened up, face blank and looking ready to leap into the middle of the fight.

Anakin's blade flickered before Obi-Wan could move. Padme blinked, and then the red blade was in Anakin's other hand and he had both blades crossed at the Emperor's throat.

She lowered her blaster. Pieces of her heart fell away as it pounded against her ribs.

 

The wrong-smile came back as Sidious looked up, yellow eyes... shining. No. Stars shone, beautiful things and the lights of the Temple and Padme's eyes that their daughter had inherited. “The prophecy must be fulfilled. Soon you will become the master of a young Sith.”

The Rule of Two. His hands shook. He'd been here before. He'd struck down Tyranus, he'd been on the verge of striking down Sidious. Mace Windu had been close, and then he'd –

_Enough!_

He shook himself. Took a deep breath. His lungs were getting stronger. “You were the first to attack.”

“And now I'm an unarmed prisoner.” Wide eyes. Wicked delight. No chains, no cages. But he'd forgotten about the lock, and he had no key. “Go on, my apprentice. Do it!”

_Enough!_

“I can deal with him if you need me to, Anakin.” Obi-Wan's steady voice. A meadow in the Force, calm and sunlit. Obi-Wan was at peace. Padme... she crackled with something frosty just out of his sight. Fear? Anger?

Anger. The storm threatened to boil over in his head. His vision was blurring. _Watch your water._ So much fury. It could lead him back to the cage, to the chains he'd shaken off. No chains, no cages. No more. _Enough._

“It's not the Jedi way.” Who did he say the words to?

“The Jedi failed you, Anakin. They didn't have all the answers.” Padme's voice. Trembling. Did she shake too? He'd heard blaster shots. It could only have been her. “Do what you need to.”

 _What you need to._ No advice. Just a calm statement, and... a choice.

Sidious leaned into the blades, just short of cutting his own throat against the humming colours. “When I die, you'll be the heart of the Empire. I have no other successor. The power might... appeal to you.”

The storm shuddered in his mind. Deep breath. No chains, no cages. No chains, of slavery or of power that he wasn't made for. Just a calm voice behind him and a choice. “Enough.” _Watch your water._ His eyes prickled. He gritted his teeth, tried not to make a sound. The two crossed blades shimmered and wavered from behind a film of... something softer than blood. Kinder.

The red blade vanished. He threw the hilt aside as he drew his own blade across and watched the figure in the robe collapse, falling face down and covered in his own chosen shadows.

He had to stay upright. He had to get out, get Obi-Wan and Padme clear. They didn't know the way out. He had to help them, had to keep them safe...

His knees gave way. Anakin sank to the floor, deactivating the blade. He held the gleaming hilt with both hands in his lap as Naboo's thunderstorm demanded to be let out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, the in-universe colour symbolism of the two lightsabres Anakin's holding when he's about to kill Dooku amuses me no end. So I had to work it in. Because symbolism and colours and Anakin spending a couple hundred words being amazed by blue earlier in the fic.  
> There's another chapter to go ~~because you can't end on the part where someone gets their throat cut dammit~~ and Force only knows what I'll do with that, I've done some weird things to the timeline I started out with over the course of this chapter. But Shmi and Padme need to talk a couple things out about their shared disaster human.


	13. New Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The path forward can be murky in the wake of a political upset. Sometimes it's best not to rush it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the excuse of the chapter for its delayed posting is... depression!  
> Yep, just straight up badbrain. You'd think I'd be prepared for it, at this point, given that basically every major episode I've ever had had started about Jan/Feb time and then run into various stages of the spring and early summer... plus there are exams happening and school is stressful and the fic just got buried. I wrote more than 3k words of this only today. And that was after seeing a post that suggested that Vader dying was the only appropriate way to end his story given the vast amount of damage he'd done to people and there was no way to atone for it and bleh and while it was an interesting post in its own right it did lead to an episode of 'why the hell am I writing this again', which is never good.  
> Then there's the fact that this story hasn't been updated for months and I wrote most of it today, which can lead to interesting choices in the writing process. But I did it! I finished a multi-chapter fanfic! And people read it, which is almost more amazing! It's also rather late in the evening here because I only finished writing it five minutes ago, and it's the last day of the school holidays, and I have to be in school early tomorrow morning. I plans things good. We'll see if my doziness has left any more basic mechanical slips in my writing and plotting than usual, I'm sure.

“Is Anakin here?” Obi-Wan asked the question before stepping into the room.

Padme looked up from Luke's determined attempt to draw Anakin's yellow fighter. The shape was recognisable, but things like perspective and scale were difficult for children to get right. “He's been working in the hangar for a few hours. He's not said much since we got back.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “And you haven't had time to ask him?”

“I've barely had a chance to sit down since we got back.” She sighed, with a weary chuckle. “Some news travels faster than other news.”

Obi-Wan nodded again as he ventured further into the room and sat on the couch across from Padme, leaving enough room for two people between himself and Leia, who sat next to Shmi mumbling her way through a play that Breha had pressed into her little hands. Though Shmi didn't look up, Padme had learnt enough since she'd picked Shmi up off Tatooine to be sure she was making note of every word. “The Senate seems to have forgotten how to act as a legislative body.”

“They did that a long time ago. I'm sad to say I watched it happen.” She sighed. “Bail will be flying out tomorrow with Han.”

Obi-Wan's brow twitched. “Why with him?”

“Wookiees are very effective bodyguards, I've heard.” Padme let herself smile.

 

Han would have preferred to let Anakin leave the hangar before he put the final touches on the Falcon – it had taken a few scrapes while they were getting clear of the battle station, and now he was meant to be flying politicians places, for some reason – but Anakin seemed to have infinite reasons to hang around and he had to start work sooner or later. So he squared his shoulders and strolled in, lax posture more tense than usual. This guy was some kind of weird old Jedi sorcerer, he'd notice Han walking in for sure.

He was crouched on the floor scrubbing grime off his old astromech, and only lifted his gaze and not his head as Han walked in. Han nodded, tongue freezing for a few moments. “You've been out here for a while.”

Anakin nodded as his gaze fell back to the droid. “I'd rather deal with the fighter than with... the political fallout of the last attack.”

He'd looked... spooked when the three of them had returned to the hangar, Han remembered, but the old man hadn't commented as he got back on board the Falcon and Padme had looked almost as pale. He'd missed something, but asking? Some people you just didn't question. Han nodded. “Need much work after the trip out?”

Anakin shook his head. “Limited damage, most of it to the exterior. Still, it's... soothing to work on.”

And yet he was tense and looking like a twanging string, despite having been out here pretty much all day. “Huh.” Had all the Jedi been this weird? No wonder the word made people snarl. Even if they had betrayed the Republic, and Han had never bothered fact-checking the history lessons off the street, people managed to talk about gangsters and slavers with less of a curl to the lip. But maybe that was just the company he kept. Talking smack about your bosses rarely got you paid a bonus. Was that a good place to end the conversation? He didn't have much else to say. “Guess I'll leave you to it, unless you want to come help knock the Falcon into shape.”

Anakin hesitated, turning his head. “Does it need much work?”

“Couple of scrapes to fix up, might replace a few parts now I'm in a place I don't have to bounce out of in a hurry.” He shrugged. “I already modified it to hell and back, I'm not sure how much more creative Chewie and I can get.”

“What have you modified it for?”

Han shrugged. Sure, it was common knowledge around this palace that he was a smuggler – why else would the staff keep giving him such dirty looks – but explaining the exact ways in which he bypassed the law? “Getting things to different places with a minimum of fuss. And quickly.”

Anakin nodded as he straightened up, patting the astromech's domed head. The astromech beeped and whirred, making Anakin's scar-straining smile appear for a moment. Han hesitated, rocking on his heels as Anakin stepped away from his own fighter. “Would you mind if I took a look at your ship? The Empire's craft were... often boring.”

“All standardised, huh?”

Anakin nodded. “Improvisation was... discouraged.”

Getting out of that system had been a good decision on Han's part. “The Falcon's a funny little one even without the work I've done. Bit of a rarity these days, those ships.”

Anakin nodded, almost smiling. Then again, maybe that was as good as an expression of general happiness got on that scar-covered face. “Always impressive to see ships of that age still working.”

 

“How old do you think the ship Father's using now is?” Luke asked, looking up from behind the blond hair that hung down over his eyes.

“It was probably made before the Republic fell.” With Padme busy discussing the Senate's consternation and immediate calls for extensive data from every Imperial organisation in the galaxy, it fell to Shmi to lean over the table to look at Luke's upside-down drawing. He'd put a great deal of effort into the background of streaming lights that Shmi recalled seeing through the windows of the Millennium Falcon while in hyperspace.

Padme glanced over and nodded. “Most of the Republic's military was disassembled in favour of new designs within five years of the Republic's fall.”

“That was stupid.” Leia looked up from her play to make the disappointed declaration. “And expensive.”

“It was.” Padme smiled, head bowed as she paged through something on her datapad.

Leia was such a spirited child. It seemed to Shmi that had the situation been different, Luke could easily have become a victim of Leia's sharp temper, mild-mannered and placatory as he could be, but there was a stubbornness about him too. They presented different faces of a one child, both of them growing up with pieces of the child Anakin had been in their smiles.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “It seems there should be... something to be done, at this point. He seems to have... moved further away from the Empire's values than I'd thought was possible in this span of time.”

Shmi started, gaze darting towards Padme, but the once Queen and Senator just nodded. “He may be forcing himself to show more improvement than has taken root, but your pessimism may have been unwarranted.”

A gentle rebuke, and one that Obi-Wan took with no more rebuttal than a short chuckle as he leaned back in the couch. “Whatever Sidious used to control him must have lost its power.”

Her son had believed her dead and feared that his guardians would not allow him to take action. Shmi sighed. If only she'd seen him earlier. The Republic had clearly been little use in that respect. A Jedi Master had visited them, accepted hospitality from slaves – and then been killed before he'd had a chance to do anything, by Padme's account. But Padme herself hadn't done anything more for Tatooine.

What would have changed had Anakin been allowed to keep his childish promise? Perhaps he'd overreached in his young desire to keep Shmi safe, but surely putting an end to slavery in the Outer Rim would have averted this great tragedy that had struck the Republic.

“Grandma? Grandma, are you listening?” Leia poked an elbow into Shmi's side.

Shmi started again, to find Padme looking up over her datapad, leaning over the table. “You have thoughts about the way Anakin was controlled?”

Shmi shrugged. “The Republic could have done something about the way he grew up. Slavery in the Outer Rim... He had a dream as a child about ending it. The Republic did nothing for ten years at least, and then it fell...” She broke off and sighed. Padme's gaze, soft as it was, was analytical, calculating – this was a matter of politics, and while Padme had shown herself to be tougher than Shmi had learnt to expect of those from comfortable mid-rim planets, she had learnt to be a politician, too. “I wonder if anything would have changed if he'd been allowed to come back to Tatooine to help the rest of us, like he said he wanted too.”

Padme's gaze dropped away in an instant. “You're right. The Republic could have done something.” A soft but flat statement. “And should.”

Obi-Wan sighed and put a hand to his chin. Shmi's glance flickered to him, but he didn't speak. After a moment, his eyes fell shut.

“Can't we do anything about it now?” Luke asked, putting his pencils down. “The Empire's going away now, the galaxy will be run by good people again.”

“It'd take time, Luke.” Obi-Wan sighed. “The Senate isn't fast-moving, and with the Emperor dead the government has to restructure itself. And not everyone in the government is what you'd consider good. They're not as bad as the Emperor was.”

“Which is still better, isn't it?”

Shmi found herself smiling, despite herself. How he echoed his father.

 

Captain Han Solo was quite a character, and Anakin found himself forced to resort to clicking mechanical fingers back and forth in their sockets to lessen the shivering of a weak heart's palpitations. It would be a long time before his body worked as well as it once had done, even with the tremendous medical effort put in by the Rebel Alliance. He'd not known that they existed for ten years, and then within weeks he'd been free of so many cages. Han chattered on while Anakin stared at the electronics behind a loose panel, hanging on by one edge and some hurried welding.

“... course, when you pick up a ship the way I got this one, you've got to be prepared for weird things going on in your engines, but she holds up pretty well considering the knocks she's taken.”

Anakin nodded as he reached for a driver. “How old are you?”

“Huh?”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.” He said the word slowly, as if he didn't want to part with the information. Strange – or not, perhaps he had his reasons. Sixteen was young to be flying alone with only a Wookiee copilot for company, perhaps this Han Solo had things buried in the past that he'd rather not admit to. The same way Anakin did. But what could Han have done to compare to what Anakin had done to his own family? All the ways he'd hurt – no, not there, not yet. He'd snap. He couldn't risk doing that. Not now, not again so soon, and who knew who'd be hurt in any flash of temper now? Obi-Wan had only lost his breath, he'd said – _enough_. He shook his head.

“How long have you had the ship?”

“Only a couple of years.” That answer came more readily.

“How long have you been on your own?”

“Those are strange questions to be asking, old man.” A soft thump rang in the hold as Han slumped into a seat.

“Children don't usually leave their parents' homes that early without pressing reason.” Being sold without their parents, being taken to join the Jedi Order... losing parents, perhaps.

A wire sparked. Anakin sighed and tugged it aside so he could reach past it to the circuitry behind it. Something here was loose, and depending on what kind of distances Han usually flew, it could cause intermittent hyperdrive issues. An astromech droid could take care of a fault like that in an instant, but Han didn't seem to keep one around. How much of the repair work did Chewbacca usually do?

“Parents disappeared when I was a kid. Not sure what happened to them.” Almost monotone, but easy – an oft-repeated story. Any further details that were known or suspected were withheld. So easy to fall back in the mission routine, ask questions, work out where people were hiding, what needed to be done. But there was no expectation of a fight at the end of this, no need to pull people out of a town that was about to become a battlefield or bring home a vulnerable Jedi who'd been trapped in the field with no support. Just him elbows-deep in live wires and a youth far too young to be doing what he was on his own. “Did what I could to get by. At that age that was sketchy stuff at times.”

“Criminal activity.” And yet... of course it was. Had Watto thrown Anakin and Shmi out on their own on Tatooine, what would they have got by on? Perhaps no better. A slave could make a better life for themselves free of that cage, but if there was no one around to give charity, it took time and back-breaking work – or criminal work – to even find the money to feed themselves at first. That would have been difficult for Shmi and Anakin to do, and he might have had to do much of the work as well.

Han said nothing for a moment. “Yeah, criminal activity. There ain't a lot you can do legally as a kid, and I had to eat somehow.”

“Survival must come first.” The work he'd done had been legal, after a fashion – he was a slave, and when Watto told him to work, he had to. That slavery was illegal in the Republic hadn't mattered. It had kept him alive. If he could just drag these two wires a little closer and then have them stay there, that would keep the connection much more reliable, but what else did those wires tug on? He'd have to go carefully and see if anything came loose.

“Strange thing to hear from you.”

“I was born a slave.” What use in denying the fact? If Han didn't hear it from him, he'd hear it from Shmi. Or Padme or Obi-Wan, they both knew. For all that he wanted to forget, those years on Tatooine in fear of that bomb in his body would continue to matter. To someone, at least. “There are things you don't forget.”

No, it mattered to him too. Because he couldn't forget that place. All that anger at the slavers... _Anger leads to hate_.

No, enough. He'd clawed himself out of that. No drifting back, even in thought. Nothing good came of it. He knew that. Enough.

“Huh.” There was less surprise than Anakin had expected to hear in Han's voice. “Guess obeying the Emperor's every word didn't come naturally to you, after that.”

_But it did. Because I was so used to it... because I never had the option of saying no._ “It... may have been the other way around.” Truth would scratch and scar his throat. But Sidious had told lies enough. No more.

“Maybe.” He seemed unconcerned. “But you're clear now, so I guess it doesn't matter. Lady who dragged you out seems to know what she's doing.”

He winced. What had Padme taken from Mustafar? Nothing pleasant. Enough, enough... she was a product of Naboo, a kinder place, more beautiful. Shaped by her home as he'd been shaped by his. He'd failed her, and she'd come back for him. He had to do better by her.

Han didn't notice. “Not sure I see what the fuss is. You took down the Emperor, you're not going to get much worse now.”

“And you're not one to advocate the heaviest of punishments for any crimes that may or may not have been committed.” The scars twanged hot with the pain of a broad smile. But he nearly had the wires together now, and so far nothing had shifted far out of place.

“Ah...” Han chuckled nervously. “Maybe not.”

Anakin nodded as he leaned forward, half inside the wall of the ship. The light dimmed in front of him, but a wire sparked, lighting up the problem – a wire casing had sealed to the wall of the compartment.

“That didn't look good.” Han's boots rung on the floor as he hurried over.

“It's fixable.” A couple of yanks with the wrong side of the driver and the wire had shifted enough for Anakin to pry it loose with his fingers. “Wires parted, in a place where it could cause hyperdrive issues.”

“Oh, is that what it was? The hyperdrive's been going every two months since I got it.” Han grinned as Anakin backed out of the opening to find the solder. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

Anakin nodded, managing another straining, stinging smile before he went back to work.

 

It wasn't a very interesting play, but the people in it were talkative and angry, and they spent pages on pages shouting at each other. It was fun reading some of the ridiculous insults they threw at each other. Leia was almost sure that Shmi wasn't really paying attention, but she kept reading aloud anyway. After a while, Obi-Wan glanced up, and then stayed looking at her, so maybe he was listening instead.

With the drawing lying finished on the table, Luke had shifted closer to Mother, who was still working through stuff on a datapad. Leia broke off her reading. “How much more do you need to do so you can send it with Bail?”

Mother hesitated, then sighed and put the datapad down. “It'd help if I could find something about the procedures for ending a war, but Palpatine buried most of the Republic archives under the Imperial system, so it's harder than it should be. We may have to reconstitute half the legal code from anything that those currently in the Senate can remember.”

“That'll take a long time.”

“It will. It took Palpatine more than ten years to create the Empire.” Mother smiled as she put an arm around Luke's shoulders. “And he was working alone, so he didn't have to negotiate. That always takes longer, but it's necessary for the sake of true democracy.”

“I managed to get in contact with Master Yoda,” Obi-Wan offered. “He's not eager to leave retirement, from what I hear, though the death of the Emperor is a positive. If there's to be any Jedi in the reformed Republic, we're going to have to work from scratch.”

“Perhaps that's for the best.” Padme's smile faded. Leia looked back down at her book. This was a serious thing. “The Jedi Order fell because of one of its own trainees. That speaks to deep flaws.”

“Flaws that I was party to, if your hypothesis follows.” Obi-Wan sighed. Mother had said at some point that Obi-Wan had aged much more than he should have since he'd sent himself into exile on Tatooine. “But between Anakin and I... I'm not sure he could go back. Or that I should.”

“Going back?”

That was Father in the door! Leia started, looking up.

 

Padme made to get to her feet, then remembered that Luke was still leaning on her. “Anakin. Obi-Wan came in here looking for you.”

He nodded and joined her on the couch, wincing as something strained a scar as he sat down. He looked much calmer than he had when Padme had seen him a few hours ago. Tinkering with the ships must have been good for him.

“Ah.” Obi-Wan cleared his throat. “I'd thought to ask about public acknowledgement of what occurred on board that battle station, as it happens. The Jedi Order as a whole is remembered without much fondness, but your name in particular... But I wasn't sure whether that act was one you wanted attributed to it.”

Anakin didn't respond at once. But he didn't look to take the comment hard. Was that progress, or a slammed-together facade of calm that could break under slight pressure? Perhaps now wasn't a good time to speak.

“If people must know, it has to be the name they knew as a Jedi.” Anakin sighed, head falling forward. “What I've done...” His next breath rasped through his teeth like Vader's breath in Padme's ears again. She had to shake that thought. All it'd do was make her jumpy. “Vader has to die the same way Sidious has. If that name stays, so does the fear.”

“And keeping people afraid will keep them in the Empire, in their minds,” Padme murmured.

Obi-Wan nodded, head bowing as he moved his gaze away. “I understand.”

“I don't see a better way.” Sombre as Anakin was, Padme had grown used to much more twitching from him. Had he achieved some epiphany out in the hangar, or was it temporary composure? “What was it about going back?”

“Reforming the Jedi Order.” Obi-Wan sighed. “Yoda seems unwilling to return, and for us... I'm not sure it would be the best path.”

“The Jedi failed. They could have done much better.”

There was that nervous crack in the voice again, all those shards of the Anakin she'd married still holding together with paste and string. But he was still, at least, no nervous twitches. If he could stay composed for a bit longer at a time, at least, that meant he was making progress. It would take time. His damage had been enough to ricochet across the whole galaxy, and it could take some time before he'd be ready to even begin to rebuild some of what he'd broken.

He had to be held responsible, somehow. Anakin Skywalker was not the Emperor's tool the way Vader had been. But it couldn't happen all at once. “If Force sensitivity is to be a trait of any use, then those who possess it will need guidance, and the Jedi did seem to have noble ends... if you can find a way to restore an order seeking those ends without corrupting them... and perhaps without the disregard for the individuals making up that order that cost you so dearly in the end... it may become a useful presence in the galaxy.”

Anakin sighed as he turned his head to look at her. “They were a symbol of the old Republic. Sidious did all he could to poison minds against them.”

“And now, as his lies were revealed, that may begin to change again.” Padme frowned, one hand on Luke's to stop him putting his fingernails in his mouth and biting them. “They are a symbol of the democracy we're trying to restore.”

“People lost faith before the fall...” She could see the stiffening in his neck, the twitches that had been suppressed since he walked in. Something had wrenched him out of the sudden despair that killing Sidious had forced him into, but perhaps not much further. “The Jedi protected slavers for the sake of some greater good. People suffered for that. The legacy they left...”

_They_ , over and over again. Slavers... “Perhaps one of your and Obi-Wan's first tasks, as soon as it becomes viable, ought to be to attempt some action against the continued slavery on Tatooine. While my methods were... effective in their own way...” She had to pause to allow herself to smile. “They were also centered around freeing a single person, so I've not made much of an impression on the wider system that feeds the practice.”

Anakin started, eyes widening into the scar tissue that covered his face, raw streams of hot pink and sickly white that made every expression tug at something visceral. “To free the slaves...”

“It'd be a complicated procedure given the need to arrange for some form of opportunity for the slaves, freedom is of little use when there are no options given to the free...” Obi-Wan mumbled the words into his hand, but his gaze met Padme's shining with something caught between fear and admiration.

Queen and Senator. This was what she'd spent her career doing. That she'd not managed to extend that effort to those away from Naboo was a flaw she could still seek to correct. “We have time, now. And since there are no other Jedi of note present to dissuade you from that path...”

“If I could...” The words were breathy from Anakin's mouth. “It's not just Tatooine, it's spread throughout the galaxy... if this new Republic can be the way to end that...”

“It may prove to be something worth fighting for.” Whether Shmi intended to finish the sentence that way, Padme couldn't tell, but Shmi smiled as she looked up at her son.

He was starting to smile himself, not wincing away from the tugging at his scars that cut so much of his happiness short. “The Empire had the means, but not the desire. Many slavers are rich enough to provide money to politicians without engaging themselves in it, it's how they've survived... it'd take years to finish, but if we follow up on those connections, put pressure on the Republic to end it...” He straightened up and took a deep breath. “And make sure the freed slaves have somewhere to go. That's important. The Outer Rim territories need to be part of this new democracy, or it'll be useless.” He looked Padme dead in the eye, calm but unmoving. Conviction. How relieving to see.

“That's what we aim to do.” She smiled and put a hand on his. “We have a chance to change things. It takes time, but we can do it.”

Anakin nodded, relaxing into the couch, and reaching over Padme with one hand to pat Luke's head. Leia had put the play aside, and hopped off her couch to jump onto her father's lap.

“It's going to be okay, now, Father, isn't it? One day.” Luke's eyes were starting to droop.

Anakin nodded. “One day. It may be bedtime for you, Luke.”

“I'm not that tired.”

Padme sighed and tugged Luke a little more upright. “You and your sister both stayed up longer than you should have last night. Come on. Both of you need to get to bed.”

“I'll see you all tomorrow at some point.” Obi-Wan pushed himself upright and made his way towards the open door. “Goodnight, children.”

“Goodnight, Obi-Wan,” Luke and Leia called as he closed the door behind him.

With their visitor no longer present, the children seemed to agree that it was time to get to bed, not that either of them moved quickly, but between Padme, Anakin and Shmi, they managed to get the twins tucked in. Anakin turned in soon after, leaving Shmi and Padme alone for a few moments.

“Well.” Shmi seemed reluctant to sit down. Perhaps she was tired enough to be on the way to bed too. “He's home.”

Padme nodded, smile fighting against a yawn. She should have gone to bed as soon as the twins did. “We did it.”

Shmi nodded, mouth opening but the words not forming. She stepped forward and hugged Padme instead. “We did it.” Soft, half-choked words. Padme could only return the hug and shut her eyes. _We've brought Anakin home._

“There's more to be done.”

“There's always more to be done.” Padme forced herself to smile a little wider as they stepped aside. “We can't erase what Palpatine did. Now it's just a matter of moving forward.”

“And he might have a chance to free Tatooine's slaves.” Shmi's voice stayed soft. But that had to be important to her, as long as she'd been a slave there. Padme nodded.

“If that doesn't help, there's little that will.” Then she yawned. “It's been a long few days, I should...”

“You and I both.” Shmi nodded. “Thank you, Padme.”

Padme stalled, wordless for several heartbeats. “I don't think I could have done it alone.”

“Neither could I.”

“Well...” Padme gave a short, trailing laugh. “Well, we got there. We'll worry about the forward path tomorrow.” After they'd slept and weren't stumbling on their own tongues every other word. “We've done enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually use this section to somewhat snarkily summarise the next chapter, but that is no longer an option. So: many thanks to everyone who's read this, a great many of you have more faith in me as a writer than I do and that's always validating. Please feel free to leave more happy comments if you enjoyed it, it makes my day every time and also exponentially increases the probability that this account will not become a barren wasteland now I've finished The Big Fic Project which I made the account for in the first place. Have fun reading and enjoy the rest of your day!


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